


Vuelvo Al Sur

by bluedenimdress



Series: bluedenimdress [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Arguing, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fan Soundtracks, Flashbacks, Handcuffs, I'm Sorry, Masturbation, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Sexual Tension, Supernatural Elements, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vaginal Sex, game universe crossover, poorly written accents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 11:44:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 107,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7220983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedenimdress/pseuds/bluedenimdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Fallout 4 crew travels across the country to the Mojave.</p><p>Starts out fluffy, adventure and drama kicks off once they leave the Commonwealth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. El Paso

**Author's Note:**

> Not to shamelessly plug my other stories, but I realize this one, especially the beginning, seems a little shark-jumpy and unreasonable if you are unfamiliar with my other ones. I just wanted to put that out there so hopefully I won't get judged too harshly for the events to follow.

FIRST TRIMESTER

* * *

 

 

 

“Come on, love.  Of all the songs you’ve sang for me, you’ve never sang that one, and it seems the most important to you.”

“It _is_ important to me, querido,” I told him.  “But it’s just weird for me to do.  It has my name in it.”

“But that’s why I want to hear it.”

“That’s why I don’t want to sing it.”  I was sitting cross-legged in the grass, clutching the guitar self-consciously to my chest.  It was a mild New England late summer day - worlds different from the staggeringly hot summers from my childhood in the Southwest – and we had been enjoying the weather to ourselves in a field outside Sanctuary.

Hancock was on the ground a few feet away.  My formerly-ghoul husband made a pouty face at me, his icy blue eyes all big and puppy-like.  “Please?”

I sighed and strummed the guitar strings idly in an unmusical manner.  After a few moments, I went right into it without any warning:

 

_“Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl._

_Nighttime would find me at Rose’s Cantina.  Music would play and Felina would whirl”_

 

I kept strumming for a few bars without singing anymore before I stopped playing.

The wind suddenly blew a quick, strong gust, lifting the tricorn hat backwards to the ground.  Hancock pulled the hat across the grass closer to him and ran his other hand through his now blonde-dyed coif, pushing it off his face.  “Well?”

I leaned my head forward and let the locks of my shaggy, dark hair fall in front of me to hide behind them.  “Well what?”

“Go on.”

“No, I think that’s enough.”

He sighed.  “Fine.  I’ll let you off the hook… for now.”

“You can’t make me.”

“I bet I could if I wanted to.”  He smirked and gently took the guitar from my hands, laying it down flat in the grass.  “But you’re right.  That was just enough to conjure a few images in my head.”  He started crawling over me, forcing me horizontal beneath him, cradled by the half-dead wild grass.

I returned his sly grin.  “Like what?”

“You…” He started laying feathery kisses on my cleavage. “In a flowing gown…”  He moved up to my collarbone.  “Dancing for me…”  He was on my neck now, working up it.  “But since you won’t finish the song for me, I’ll have to use my imagination.”  He nibbled at my earlobe.  “And since this is _my_ fantasy now…”  He traced the edge of my ear with his tongue and then paused right over it.  I could feel his warm breath as he spoke in a deep whisper.  “I think you’ll lose the dress altogether.”

“Ok, fine, I’ll finish the song for you.”

“Oh, no.  It’s too late for that.  You had your chance.”  He repositioned himself on his knees with me between them.  With one soft hand riding the length of my leg up my skirt, he started dexterously unfastening buttons with his other hand.

I was squirming.  “John!  We’re not that far from the settlement!”

That didn’t slow him down.  “I don’t care.”  He had my skirt gathered at my waist by the time he finished opening my top, freeing up his other hand to help pull the sides of it open.

The feeling of the breeze across my bare skin sent a shiver through me and brought my nipples to attention.  “What if I said I had a headache?”

He stopped drinking in the sight of my breasts momentarily to look me in the eye and say with all earnestness, “Well, you know what the best thing for a headache is, don’t ya?”

“I can guess where you’re going with that.”  I shrugged and reached up to unbutton his shirt.  I pulled it open and placed my palms on his smooth chest, sliding them down his firm stomach.  I untied the flag around his waist, and grabbed hold of either side, pulling him down onto me with it.

A satisfied growl escaped him as he let gravity take his body down onto me, landing a forceful kiss on my lips.  With only a teasing amount of tongue, he withdrew and starting kissing his way down.  As he lightly brushed his lips and tongue against my rigid nipples, my hips involuntarily started grinding into his groin.  I wasn’t really in the mood before that, but the attention he was giving my unusually sensitive breasts pulled me into it for some reason.  I wrapped my legs around him.

The only barrier between us downstairs was his pants, and I could feel his growing enthusiasm waiting to be released.  I was all in by then.  I slid my hands between us, fumbling blindly at the closure.  Once I had it open, he sent one of his hands to aid in pulling himself free.  The hot, hard feeling of him between my thighs sent a wave of desire rippling upward, and I felt my blood rush.  His tip began to rub at my entrance…

“I changed my mind,” I told him, breathlessly.

“What?”

I pushed his face down between my legs.

“Oh.”  He looked up at me from his new position.  “All you have to do is ask, love.”  He placed delicate kisses inside my thighs, working his way closer and closer, but he seemed to be taking his time in doing so. 

Little moans escaped me as my anticipation built.  I became convinced he wasn’t ever going to make it where I wanted him.  “John?”

He paused.  “Felina?”

“What are you doing?”

“I dunno.  What am I doing?”

“Well, you appear to be missing the mark.”

“I told you,” he said between soft presses of his lips on my thigh.  “You have to ask.”

An arousing flash of frustration washed over me.  “Seriously?”

With only the top of his unblemished face visible from my point of view, he shot some quick eye contact up at me.  “Do I look like I’m playing?”  He ran his tongue a little closer to the destination, still deliberately avoiding any direct connection.

His warm, moist tongue dangerously close to my entrance made my body begin to writhe, trying to angle myself toward the potential heaven.  “Please, John,” I moaned.

“I’m listening.”

I bit my lip.  “…Lick me?”

He stopped.  “I am licking you.”

I was starting to get vexed.  “You’re really enjoying fucking with me right now, aren’t you?”

With his tongue teasing my flesh once more, he nodded.

I was done playing games.  I squeezed my thighs against his head until I heard a muffled protest.  “Eat my fucking pussy, Hancock!”

He shot his head up and I could see his eyes light up.  “That’s what I’m talking ‘bout!”

I opened my legs and he finally dove in, dragging his tongue up my slit.  I grabbed hold of his hair and cried out, my moans tapering into desperate panting as he alternated between tracing his tongue outside and slipping inside.  An unexpected suck at my clit made my legs shake in a quick push toward my climax, but he immediately slowed down after, drawing things out.  I pulled at his hair, wordlessly pleading for more, but he was back to playing his game.  I was going to have to ask for it.

Wiggling and wound up, I loosened my grip on his hair until my fingers were merely gently tangled.  Smooth and sweet as honey, I begged him, “Por favor, hazme vienen, amor.”

He looked up at me again, his eyes just over the horizon of my stomach and his blonde head framed by my bent legs.  “That’s beautiful, love, but I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Please, make me come.”

His blue eyes were alit with personal amusement.  “Since you asked so nicely…”

He went back to work, flicking deftly with his tongue.  My legs started to tense up as I felt myself reaching the peak.  When I finally went over, he quickly sat up, plunging two fingers inside me.  I gasped as my waning orgasm restarted at the impact.  He played me like a fiddle, eliciting a more intense indulgence than before.  I cried out desperately at the long, drawn out feeling that was causing me to gush down below.  “Oh, fuck fuck _fuck_!”

He was moaning quietly at his own artistry as I tried to catch my breath.  While I was still reeling, he guided himself in.  The fullness of him sent another rush through me, and before I knew it, I was panting again.

He made a pleased humming sound as he drove himself to the hilt.  He leaned forward, laying a sensuous kiss on my lips while he eased out and thrust back in over and over.  I relished the intimate gesture for a few long moments before pushing his face back down to my breasts.  Gripped by his own physical pleasure, he didn’t require my verbal request this time.  He began sucking at them, and I felt a fierce bliss from the touch. 

He was growing harder, and he turned his focus back to the rhythmic pumping that was gradually becoming less calculated.  I was still riding my original waves when he lost control and let go, his body joining mine in unrestrained convulsing.

Breathless and spent, he bowed forward and simultaneously rolled to the side, hitting the grass beside me on his back.  He began tucking himself back into his pants as I smoothed out my skirt and buttoned my top.  Returning to reality, I instinctively glanced across the stream towards the town to check if someone had seen us, but didn’t see anyone.

Hancock had caught his breath and folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the flossy white clouds drifting across the blue.  “How’s your headache?”

“What headache?”

He grinned.  “You’re welcome.”

_At least he forgot about the song_.

“And don’t think I forgot about the song.”

_Dammit._   I reached beside me for his left hand, lacing my fingers in his.  After a moment, I began lightly brushing his hand with my fingertips in search for his wedding ring.  I traced along the cool metal band for a second before going back to softly stroking his hand all over.  When I felt a strange contrast in his skin, I stopped with my fingers at the edge of his wrist and sat up.  “What happened here?”

“What?”

I pushed his sleeve back, revealing a large area of exposed muscle.  “John?”

He sat up, too, and pushed his sleeve back down.  “It ain’t nothin, love.”

“That’s not nothing!  How long has that been there?”

“Since this morning.”  He was still holding his hand around his sleeve when he sighed.  “The anti-mutagen isn’t working, Felina.  I’ve known for a while, but I didn’t want to worry you, not yet anyway –“

I frantically put my arms around him.  “Are you going to be alright?”

As I held him, his body stayed rigid.  “Yeah… other than becoming a ghoul again.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“Positive.  I would know.  I’ve been here before.”

I relaxed my grip a little, relieved.  “Good.”

“Good?”

“Good that you’re going to be alright.  I couldn’t take losing you again.”

He returned my embrace.  “You’re not disappointed?”

“Of course not, amor.  I love you, ghoul or human.  Was there any doubt?”

He held me tighter.  “You’re a saint, Felina.  You know that?”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement, but I get your meaning.”  I smiled.  “I’m here this time.  We’ll get through this together.”

He laughed under his breath.

I pulled away from him.  “What?”

“I’m sorry, Felina,” he said, leaning back into my arms. “You’re going to have to start taking the rad-x again.”

“Shit, querido, that’s the least of my worries.”


	2. (Maybe) Perfect Day

Later, after the sun had gone down, Hancock followed me down the hallway and we poked our heads into Shaun's room. He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the dog and pieces of his disassembled laser rifle while his clock radio played

"It's time for bed, hijo. You can finish that in the morning."

He was intensely focused on tweaking one particular piece of his rifle and didn't even look up at me. "I'm not even tired."

Hancock stepped into his room. "You have to listen to your mom, kid." His hand reached to turn the radio off, but the song _Maybe_ was playing.

"Wait," I said, stopping him from reaching the switch. "You can leave it." I walked to Shaun's bed and sat down. "If I tell you a story, will you go to bed?"

He pursed his lips and gave his rifle piece one more stare of consideration. "Alright." He set it down and crawled into bed.

Hancock covered him up and sat down beside me on the edge of the mattress.

I was humming along with the radio. "Do you know why I like this song so much, hijo?"

"No."

"It reminds me of when I was pregnant with you."

"You mean when you were pregnant with Father."

The song ended and I turned the radio off. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Yes."

…

…

…

 _Maybe_ always reminds me of my first morning of maternity leave.

I was mad, like, all the time. I was a caffeine addict and a heavy smoker, but I had to stop when I found out I was pregnant…Plus surging hormones…It wasn't pretty…

My car was still in the shop from the little road-rage fender-bender I had recently gotten into, so Nate got a ride to work so I could have his truck in case of an emergency. I got up after he left and went to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast with what we had on hand. Everything in the kitchen was health food. It was like a goddamn vegan potluck with the kinds of food Nate had been insisting I eat for the baby.

I sat down at the table and looked at the rabbit food I had just prepared and my stomach turned. I missed real food. _I could really go for some of those frozen ravioli things…_

I looked down at my massive gut. "What do you think, Shaun?" I could feel him moving around.

He seemed excited about the prospect, too, so I hobbled to the truck to go to town for some shopping. With the bench seat pushed all the way back to make room for my big, round belly, my feet could barely reach the pedals, but I made do.

A little down the road, the truck's dashboard lit up and made a dinging sound. I looked down and noticed the fuel light was on, so I turned into the Red Rocket and waddled to the store's counter. There was a line and I started getting fidgety as I waited. My swollen feet started to throb and my back was aching. I was finally next in line when I realized the old woman in front of me was taking an awfully long time. That's when I started paying attention to what she was doing.

"Give me three of the Nuka Dollars and the Lucky Bots…. Those are twenty dollars each, right? How much do I have left? Okay, make it only two Luck Bots and give me one of the ten dollar Big Bombs…"

 _Fucking lottery tickets_. I sighed out loud.

She held her finger up. "Hold on a sec, young man." Turning around to face me, she asked, "Is there a problem?"

"Not yet, no."

"Good." She turned back to the cashier and continued budgeting her scratch-off winnings. She finished cashing in her previous tickets and collected her fresh ones from the clerk which she started scratching off at the counter with a Nuka Cola bottle cap.

The clerk gave her a defeated grimace – the kind you get from having to deal with the same stereotypical problems day in and out. "You can't scratch those off here," he informed her, deadpan.

"Oh, I know, young man, but it will only take a second –"

I looked behind me at the growing line of people who all uncomfortably looked the other way. _Really?_ I stepped forward to the counter. "You heard the guy. You can't scratch those off here."

"Look! I won another ticket!"

I started handing a stack of $100 bills to the cashier, but she shoved my arm out of the way. "Gimme another Big Bombs, young man."

I scowled. "Lady, I need to get gas! Wait your turn like everyone else! You're holding up the whole line!"

She looked me up and down. "What's your hurry? You about to drop that puppy right this second? Of course I would expect someone rich enough to afford _gas_ and a _baby_ in this economy, to think they're more important than everyone else…"

"You're right." I motioned in front of me. "Please, go before me. You look like you're running out of time on this earth."

She leaned her head closer to me and spoke gently, as though she really didn't hear me. "What did you say?"

"Just go, but hurry the fuck up! They're gonna drop those bombs before you finish up here!"

She made an ugly, wrinkled face at me. "Rude!" She scooped her tickets up and left anyway. Everyone started clapping.

I thrust the bills at the cashier. "Prepay on 2, ándale."

At the Super-Duper Mart, I grabbed the raviolis I had a craving for, cheese and tortillas so I could turn the bullshit veggies at home into quesadillas, Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, Potato Crisps, Sugar Bombs, YumYum Devilled Eggs, Nuka Cola, and literally every piece of junk that looked good to me. Once the basket was practically overflowing, I made my way to the check out.

I declined the bag boy's offer for help and pushed my heavy cart out to the parking lot on my own. Once I turned down the row of cars where I was parked and my vehicle came into view, an exasperated sigh forced its way out of me. I had forgotten I was in the pick-up truck. _Fuck. All this stuff is not going to fit in the cab._

With one final push up to the truck's tailgate, I leaned my tired, fat ass on the side of the cart and started tying the plastic bags closed so I wouldn't lose all my groceries in the truck bed once I got down the road. While I was doing this, I noticed an unfamiliar atomic car slowing to a stop behind me. I looked up from the cart to glance around the parking lot briefly. It was mostly full but there were a few parking spots just as close to the door as the one I was in. _I know this pendejo is NOT waiting on me…_

Just then, the driver honked at me. The jarring sound sent me into a fit of rage. I slammed down the bag of cans I had in my hand and turned around. "What?!"

The driver started rolling her window down and I saw it was the geriatric old fart that was holding up the line at the Red Rocket. "Hurry up! I need to pick up my prescription!"

"YOU!? Forget it! There's plenty of other parking spots. I'm taking my time."

"That's the problem with you young folks today. You think you're entitled…"

I went back to tying my bags and tossing them over the truck's gate. "Go on, grandma, and grab one of those disabled spaces by the door. No one's going to give a crap if you don't have handicap plates when they see your decrepit old bones get out of that government-issue death wagon that my tax dollars paid for."

Her brake lights went off as she put her car in park. "No thank you, _whipper snapper_ , I think I'll wait."

I mumbled under my breath, "Perra vieja… go fuck yourself…"

She put a finger to her ear and turned up the volume on her hearing aid. "What did you just say?"

I shouted in a condescendingly uncomfortable volume. "I said 'suit yourself'!"

She gave me the finger and rolled her window up.

I finished putting my groceries in the truck bed and got in the cab. The Ink Spots _Maybe_ was playing on the radio, but its mellow rhythm wasn't calming me down. I was still furious and shaken by the confrontation and just sat there with the engine running.

After a few moments, I broke down and tapped the side of my fist against the air vent. It popped open and a pack of cigarettes tumbled out into my lap. I just held the pack in my hand for a few moments, trying to justify just one when the cranky cunt honked at me again.

I lit one for myself and rehid my secret stash. That first drag was heavenly and dizzying the way the first ever cigarette your best friend's older brother gives you behind the school gym during recess is. I exhaled and took a look in my rearview mirror, preparing to back out, when I noticed the atomic car was now directly behind me, blocking me from leaving.

I jumped when the old woman knocked on my window. She started screaming, "You just gonna sit there, you disrespectful –"

I rolled the window down and blew smoke in her face. "What? What am I? Por favor, tell me."

She gasped. "Are you smoking? And _pregnant_?!"

"No, abuela, I'm not pregnant, just fat."

She started pulling on the door's handle, but I locked it. "Get out of that truck, _right now_!"

"Okay!" I took another drag off the cigarette and thumped it out the window at her. I flew out of the door, leaving the engine running, and got in her face. "You wanna go, you old bitch?! Let's fucking do this!"

I could still hear the truck's radio as the old lady and I tumbled in the parking lot:

 

_Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near_

_Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again_

_And maybe I'll say 'maybe'_

 

Nate had to come pick me up from the police station…

He was livid when we got home. "What were you thinking, Felina?! You're eight months pregnant!"

I was still humming _Maybe_ to myself. "Which part?"

"All of it! Maternity leave is not for gallivanting around town and picking fights with old ladies… And smoking?"

"Hormones, Nate. This shit isn't easy…"

"Yeah, well, it's not easy for me either when I have to leave work early to pick my very pregnant wife up from the police station."

"I can't smoke, I can't drink, I can't have coffee, and there's never anything good to eat around here… Everything sucks, Nate! And then I'm supposed to cook and clean when my feet are swollen, my back hurts, and I'm as big as a whale… Esta cañón…"

"What are you saying? You want me to do the dishes? Is that going to make you happy?"

Shaun started kicking me and I put a hand over my belly. "It couldn't hurt."

He chuckled. "A married man doing his own dishes… I bet you think you're funny."

"Maybe," I replied facetiously.

"Look, if you're having trouble keeping up with the housework, why don't we get a Mr. Handy?"

"I don't want a Mr. Handy, Nate! I want you to help out more! Women doing all the dishes made sense when women didn't work, but I have a career. I went to college and got a degree. If that doesn't make us equals, I don't know what does."

"Tell you what. Whatever you want for dinner tonight, I'll make it and I'll even do the dishes. How does that sound?"

I squirmed a little, trying to get comfortable on the couch. "It's a start, I guess."

"In the future, if you need anything while I'm gone, you should get Lynn to go with you. And things are only going to get hairier after Shaun is born and you go back to work, so you should at least consider what I said about the Mr. Handy."

"Maaaybeee I'll say maaaybeee," I told him in a sing-song.

…

…

…

"And that's why _Maybe_ reminds me of being pregnant."

Shaun didn't look very amused. "Wouldn't _Grandma Plays the Numbers_ make more sense in reminding you of that story?"

I smirked. "Maybe."

"Nate was right. You _do_ think you're funny…but you're not."

I ruffled his hair. "Go to sleep, Shaun."

* * *

Hancock closed the door behind us gently once we were in the hall. He took my hand in his. "I didn't realize it was sexist to let you cook and clean, love. Why didn't you say something before? I could do more…"

"Oh, right, like you couldn't have guessed."

"I really didn't know. That ain't really a thing now days. I've been letting you do everything because you always want things done a certain way and you've shooed me out of the kitchen more than once –"

I jerked my hand out of his. "Really? Are you sure you aren't just playing dumb so you can do all the chems guilt-free while I do everything around here, completely sober?" I had no idea where that came from.

He furrowed his brow and pulled me down the hallway away from Shaun's door. "Hey, you've been awful combative today," he said in a hushed tone. "Did I do something wrong?"

"I don't know, did you?!" I didn't mean to say that, but his calm, observant reaction felt like I was being condescended to and I got irrationally angry.

"I don't want to argue with you, Felina. Can you just dial it back a little?"

"I give you all kinds of crazy sex aaall the time! I think I've earned the right to be a bitch every now and then!" I definitely didn't mean to say that.

"What the fuck is that? What are you talking about?"

"You heard me!"

"No, I... You give me…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "You need to calm the fuck down for a second."

"Oh, I'm calm, John. You haven't seen me lose it yet."

He narrowed his eyes and his posture deflated. "I guess the honeymoon is over, huh? I should have known. Things have been too good between us for too long…" He suddenly raised a brow. "Are you sure you're not… about to start…"

"Well, you just know everything, don't you? I'm being a bitch so it _must_ be PMS, is that it? You think you're hot shit, like you can just come in here and wave your dick around – "

He locked eyes with me, scowling. "Whoa! Time out, love. I don't want to know where you're going with that when I don't even know what we're arguing about."

"…I… I don't either." I actively calmed myself with a deep breath. "I'm sorry. It's like I'm watching from the outside and can't stop myself. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me."

I could tell Hancock was relieved by my apology. "Hey, forget it. I know you didn't mean it."

"It's just, I dunno." I put a hand over my bloated tummy. "My head is cloudy, I'm steady gaining weight, and I feel generally bad all around. I know that's no excuse, but it's the truth."

"It's probably just because your system is still clearing the chems out. I wouldn't know from experience or anything, but a little weight gain and unpleasantness is bound to be a given. I don't fault you for it, and I still think you're beautiful no matter what." He kissed my forehead.

"Yeah, alright." I was still a little vexed, despite his kindness. "I probably am…about to start… That's a little extreme, even for me though."

"I'm admittedly a little on edge from the anti-mutagen, so I'm sorry if I did anything to upset you."

"No, you didn't. It's all me. I'll try to keep that shit in check, though, because you don't need the extra stress right now." I stretched my arms over my head as a yawn slipped out. "I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to go lay down. I know it's still early. You don't have to feel obligated to come, too."

"If you're going to bed, I'd like to come with you…unless you don't want me to."

I smiled. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course I want you there. Just don't expect much action from me. I'm halfway to dreamland already."


	3. Gone With the Sin

After a few weeks of watching Hancock deteriorate, I was thankful Shaun had asked to stay the night at Billy's house. He was already aware of the situation with the anti-mutagen by then, but Hancock was not in his right mind that night. He was feverish and out of it as he writhed around in bed. Sometimes, he would spout out nonsense, but he had warned me a few days earlier that this might happen.

He was burning up and I was blotting his forehead with a cool, moist rag.

"I don't want any more radaway, Felina!"

"There's no radaway, John. I promise."

"Keep that shit away from me! It fucking burns…" He pulled the blanket over his face. "Don't let Fahrenheit see me like this."

"Not a problem. We're in Sanctuary."

"She wouldn't respect me anymore."

"Hey, everything's okay. Don't worry about that."

"I think she knew something was up. She was on to me. She knows I know she hates needles…" He removed the blanket from his face. "Don't tell her I'm her dad, okay? This probably wouldn't be happening if I was."

I raised an eyebrow. "Of course not," I said, placating him.

I stayed by his side, wishing there was something more I could do. His ramblings vaguely reminded me of the incident when he overdosed, and I was sick to my stomach as I looked on anxiously. "Can I get you anything?"

He turned his head to me and looked at me with sincerity as though nothing was wrong. "I got _you_. What else could I need?"

I smiled weakly. "Would you like some water?"

"Well, since you're offering," he said, not sounding at all like himself, "I'll take the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please."

I was hesitant, having to remind myself that chems were not the direct cause of this problem. "Med-x it is." I peeled away the sweat-soaked shirt from his frame and noticed the decay had spread all the way up his arm and across his chest.

My skin crawled as I thumped at the needle and pushed the plunger up until the fluid was leaking from the tip and I was sure there were no air bubbles in the syringe. My body still craved this ritual for myself, and I shuddered at the inappropriate longing that flashed across me in the moment. As I pierced his freshly ruined arm with the needle and pushed in, his body jerked upward and he gasped. I felt like I could feel his own heartbeat in my body as it pumped the chem throughout him, slowly easing him back down onto the bed in a light orgasmic panting. I cycled through a whole range of emotions in an instant and had to flee the room.

I raced to the bathroom, just barely making it to my knees in front of the toilet before I lost everything from my stomach into the bowl. Once I was sure the nausea had passed, I shakily lit a cigarette and took a long, calming drag. The smoke blew out from my lips in a distressed stutter. I picked myself up off the floor and headed back to the bedroom.

Hancock was rolling around and groaning. His forehead glistened with sweat, accentuating new marks on his face. I crawled into bed beside him, sitting up and possessively clutching my cigarette.

He repositioned with his head in my lap and reached his hand up to caress my arm. "I'm sorry, Felina."

My stomach was still churning unpleasantly. "For what?"

"That you have to go through this."

"No, mi amor, I'm sorry that _you_ have to go through this."

He tightened his grip on me. "Thank you for taking care of me."

"I wish I could do more."

"You're already doing more than enough… I wish I had found you sooner…"

I took another trembling drag from the cigarette, pulling my arms close to my midsection. "Don't go down that road, again, John. I don't like where it goes."

His eyes scrolled and I could almost see the random thoughts pushing their way through his head as he tried to stay focused. I put my free hand on his cheek and stroked his skin with my fingers. He released his grip on my arm and started running his palms over me. He turned over and pushed himself up off the mattress, facing me.

"Hey, take it easy, amor."

"No, your breasts… exquisite." He started palming at them through my tank top. "They're so big…"

I scoffed. "No they aren't."

"Yes, they are." He continued to squeeze at me. "Bigger than usual."

I was ashamed by how sensitive I was to his touch right then, given the situation. "You're just tripping."

"No, I'm feeling pretty good right now."

"It's the med-x."

"Take your shirt off."

"John –"

He started lifting the edge of the shirt. "I want to see them."

I had a quick internal dialogue with myself and decided if it would distract him from the horrible things that were happening to him, it could only help. I pushed my cigarette into the ashtray on the nightstand and crossed my arms across my stomach, grabbing the edges of the fabric and pulling the soft cotton up. The bottom of the shirt caught under my right breast as I tugged it over my head, and it broke free with an excessive bounce.

He moaned a little, tentatively reaching out toward me. "Can I touch you?"

"Of course."

"Are you sure it's okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be? I'm your wife."

He looked confused for a brief moment. "That's right. You are." He made contact with both hands, and his posture melted as he massaged my chest. "Oh, god…"

I was starting to get kind of ramped up, too, when he leaned in to kiss me. I put my hand on his bare chest and stopped him short. "You don't want to do that."

"I'm sorry. I forgot to ask. Can I kiss you?"

Thinking back to my visit to the bathroom, I replied, "I don't think you should."

"Right. " He leaned back on his knees. "Felina?"

"Yes, John?"

"I should have asked you before…" He took my hand in both of his. "Will you marry me?"

I felt another little flutter – a pleasant one - in my stomach as it occurred to me I never actually heard him speak those words before. That's not the way it had happened originally. "Are you okay?"

"No pressure. You ain't gotta answer right away, because I know you still love Nate, and I respect that, but I _love_ you, Felina. You're the first thing I think of every morning and the last thing I think of when I'm falling asleep. You make me feel… important. Like you actually love me as messed up as I am. I know I can't replace Nate and I can't give you any children but... All I can give you is myself, but I promise… I promise you'll have all of me, completely. I'll do anything for you. Anything…Please stay with me and I won't run anymore."

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, John. Not without you. I love you, too." I put my arms around him.

He breathed a hitched breath, his head buried in my neck. "Is that a yes?"

"Yes, John. I'll marry you. Again and again. As many times as I have to to make you know it's real."

As I held his shaking body in my arms, something he said stuck with me.

_"I can't give you any children."_

That was true, as long as he was a ghoul, but lately, he had not been.

* * *

He finally passed out, and I was able to unwind a little. I looked down on his sleeping form lovingly, stroking his raw skin. He was almost completely ghoul again, snoring through the signature hole where his nose had been. These last several weeks, he had felt like a stranger to me, even though I knew better. I hated what he had to go through to get there, but the familiar sight of the first John Hancock I knew put me at ease. I thought he was beautiful.

The nausea was returning, so I slid out of the bed, careful not to wake him. I had been awake all night and the sun was starting to come up. I was dog-tired, but my stomach was too upset for me to sleep. I made my way to the bathroom as the queasiness hit full on. I was surprised to find that I still had something left to throw up at this point. I tried to flush, but the toilet bowl started to fill instead of draining. _Great._ I reached behind it to the pipes and twisted the handle on the valve, stopping the flow. My stomach started turning again and I raced out back.

I managed to reach the grass before anything came out. In between the waves of sickness, I made my way to a lawn chair and collapsed into it. _I'm so tired_ … My body didn't care. It had already made plans to continue its reverse digestion for a while. I sleepily alternated through dozing off and throwing up from my chair as the morning light became more prominent.

At some point, Shaun and Billy came running through the yard. "Hey, mom! How's dad?"

"He's not human anymore, but otherwise, he's fine."

He stopped in front of me. "Is it okay if we go in, then? Billy and I just want to get some stuff from my room, but we'll be really quick. I promise we won't disturb him."

"Yeah, that's fine, hijo. Can you give me some time alone back here for a while, though? I'm not feeling well."

He gave me a somber look. "You need to de-stress, mom. Esta cañón."

I smiled. "You're right, hijo. Gracias."

They disappeared from view, and I was left alone with my thoughts. Of course I was tired. I hadn't been to sleep in more than 24 hours, but I had been tired even before that. The nausea and bloating, my moodiness, my overly sensitive breasts… I mindlessly grabbed at them. Hancock was right. _They_ do _seem bigger_ …

The obvious symptoms slipped right under my radar. We hadn't been trying at all, since we were told before it couldn't happen. Plus, we had Shaun now. The concept never crossed my mind again after that, and with everything that had been going on recently, it didn't occur to me that it could happen while Hancock was human.

I was trying to remember the last time I had a period when I felt my stomach starting to act up again. I leaned over the side of the chair, a pounding in my head, as my insides twisted once more. When I looked up, Hancock was by the corner of the house.

"Hey!" He came swiftly to my side. "Are you okay?"

I just nodded, unable to speak just yet, still swallowing and trying to quell my spasming throat.

He knelt down between my legs, looking up into my face. "Have you been forgetting to take your rad-x, love?"

I shook my head. "No, I've been taking it."

He must not have believed me, because he grabbed my arm and started flipping through the screens on my pip-boy. After checking the radiation meter, he released my arm. "You didn't start doing chems again, did you?"

I shook my head again, fighting another surge of sickness.

"…Mirelurk eggs?"

I grabbed at my queasy belly and looked up in his once again dark eyes, trying to find the best words to convey everything I needed to say to him.

His eyes darted frantically over me. My face must have said it all. He caught up with me before I could say anything. "Are you… pregnant?"

I felt an involuntary smile spread across my face as the reality sunk in from hearing him say it out loud. "I think so, John."

He threw himself into my chest, holding me tightly. "Oh, Felina!"

We had been holding each other in an electric silence for a long time when I burst into tears.

He pulled back some to meet my gaze. "Hey, this is good news, Felina. What's the matter?"

"It is, querido. These are happy tears, I promise."

"When you're feeling better, we need to take you to see Dr. Amari."

"Is this even something she handles?"

"She's a doctor, ain't she?"

"Can I catch a nap, first? I didn't sleep all night." I was wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes. "How are _you_ , by the way?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me, love. In fact, I'm better than fine. You're going to have my baby…"

"Do you remember anything about last night?"

"Everything up until we went to bed. Why?"

I grinned. "Just curious."

"Is there something I need to know?"

"No." I braced myself on the arms of the chair and started pushing myself up.

Hancock shot his hands out to me. "Let me help you."

"I'm not crippled, querido! I'm just nauseous and tired."

He put his palm on my belly, smirking. "There's something in there, though."

"This is nothing. Just wait until I start to show." I was on my feet now, but Hancock still wouldn't let go of me. I sighed. "If you must, you can help me get to bed before I pass out from sleep deprivation."

"I can do better than that." He scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the house.

I giggled weakly. "Enjoy doing that while you still can."

He placed me on the mattress and then laid down beside me and folded his arms across his chest, staring up at the ceiling. "Thank you for everything you did for me last night. I know it had to have been hard on you, especially considering…"

"I'm glad I was there. I hate the thought of you going through that alone."

"Oh, fuck that. I can't believe I knocked ya up!" He turned his head toward me and smiled sweetly. "You really are the best thing that's ever happened to me, Felina."

I returned his grin. "You know what? You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, too."

He grabbed my hand and laid there with me until I fell asleep.


	4. You Can't Always Get What You Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to set things up a little more and tie up some loose ends, but I promise, they're actually going to leave the Commonwealth at some point. I'm equal parts sad about leaving my imaginary friends behind in my own story and intimidated by venturing into parts with no established lore, so anyone that has bared with me this far, I appreciate you hanging in there. I realize at this point, I'm doing myself more of a personal service than any readers, but I just need a few more chapters...

Midafternoon, we were preparing to take the vertibird to Goodneighbor to visit Dr. Amari. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, tying my boots. Hancock, already ready, was taking casual inventory of his pockets while patiently waiting for me to finish getting dressed.

I had one boot on and was moving to the next. "So, what do you think of the name 'Rosalita' for a girl?"

"That's pretty, love, but I was thinking 'Lola'."

I frowned. I thought I had a jump on him, it being the name I had picked out before finding out Shaun's sex, but he was already thinking of names, too. "Come on, querido. I lost the fight with Nate over Shaun's name. Let me pick this one."

"Why Rosalita?"

"It's from a song," I smiled, "like my name."

"So is Lola. You know." He started to sing, " _Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets_ …" He was grinning from ear to ear when he stopped. "And my daughter, yeah, she'll get whatever she wants."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "The devil from _Damn Yankees_?"

He looked confused. "What?"

I shook my head. "No me gusta. I don't like it."

He started singing again. " _I always get what I aim for, and your heart 'n soul is what I came for_ …" With his arms outstretched, he came toward me and put his palms on my cheeks. " _Whatever Felina wants, Felina gets_ …" He placed a kiss on my forehead. "Rosalita it is, love."

I smiled. "Thank you, querido."

"And what if it's a boy?"

"'John', of course."

He shuddered. "I may have to put my foot down on that one."

"Unless you bring a better suggestion to the table, I'm sticking with 'John'."

"I don't even like 'John' and it's my name…"

"I like you _and_ your name."

"Yeah, but Shaun and John…Doesn't that sound kind of gimmicky to you?"

I stood up from the bed. "I think it's cute."

He sighed. "I hope it's a girl."

We stepped outside the house, and I scanned the town for Shaun. I made eye contact with him across the street under the workshop carport and motioned for him to come over.

He jogged to where I was standing. "You look like you're feeling better," he said with a smile.

"I am, thank you. Just to be sure, your dad is going to take me to see Dr. Amari. I want you on your best behavior while we're gone."

His smile turned mischievous. "No, promises."

I caught sight of Preston down the street in my peripheral vision and was struck with a mild jolt of anxiety. "Shaun – "

"Hey, I'm just kidding, mom. Relax."

Hancock patted him on the head. "You're a good kid."

I grabbed Hancock's hand and was already heading toward the fields as I bid Shaun goodbye.

Hancock looked at me sideways as I urgently dragged him to the vertibird. "Hey, you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, hurry up."

It wasn't all that long ago that Preston and I were good friends, but I could hardly remember what that was like. Those days, I found myself subconsciously trying to avoid him. Every time I saw him, he was trying to get me to do some routine Minutemen duties that they should be able to handle on their own. Of course, I cared, and I realized that it was my responsibility as the General, but I felt like the requests for aide were always coming at the worst possible times...

I had one hand on the frame of the vertibird, about to hoist myself up when I heard his voice behind me. "General?"

_Fuck._ I winced and turned to face him. "Yes, Preston?"

"I got word of another settlement that needs –"

"I got something a bit different for _you_ , this time," I interrupted.

"What?"

"Yes." I attempted to hop in the vertibird.

The instant my feet lifted off the ground, Hancock was lunging toward me, guiding me up with his hands. "Careful, love."

I sighed. "John…"

Preston looked concerned. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine, Preston. Here's what I want you to do. Either round up a posse and go to this settlement yourself or delegate the task to any number of Minutemen strategically scattered across the Commonwealth. Can you do that?"

"I, uh… I suppose I could."

"Good. I need you to start doing this sort of thing from here on out and taking on more Minutemen responsibilities yourself." I settled into the passenger seat and Hancock took the controls. "I won't always be here to help."

The concern on his face became more severe. "Is there something I need to know about?"

"I'm pregnant." I reached across Hancock and flipped the blades on. "You'll probably have to act as General real soon. Start getting used to the idea." I motioned to Hancock and he took the vertibird up towards the sky. "And don't mention this to anyone yet, please!" I called to Preston as the aircraft rose above him.

* * *

Hancock brought the vertibird to its usual landing spot in Goodneighbor on top of the Old State House. Once he turned the engine off, he became motionless as though he had no intention of getting out. He just kept staring ahead. "Why did you tell Preston?"

"What's the problem?"

"First of all, your 'condition' ain't medically confirmed, yet. Second, it's kind of a big deal."

"That's why I asked him not to tell anyone yet."

"Don't get me wrong. I like Preston, but… Let's just go talk to Dr. Amari and make sure you really are pregnant before we start spreading the word."

"I'm sorry, querido. I was trying to avoid having to make an unnecessary stop on the way."

"I'm sure you could have done that without telling him."

"You're right. I probably could have, but I need him to understand…" I felt hormonal tears forming.

He finally slid out of his seat and onto the roof, offering a hand to me. "Hey, don't do that! It's not that big of a deal." I took his hand, and he helped me stepped down. "I'm not really mad or anything."

"I feel bad, John! About blowing off the Minutemen. About bringing another child into this world. About wanting selfish things…"

"Whoa, slow down. One step at a time, love."

"I know I'm just emotional and hormonal, but I can't stop. I hate crying, goddammit!"

He started leading me to the stairs. "Let's just go see the doctor, 'kay? We'll figure all that other stuff out later."

"Okay…" I rubbed a hand across my face.

We came down the rooftop steps and were spotted by Fahrenheit sitting at the office desk with the doors open. "You!" She called to Hancock. "Will you make up your mind already?" She began to approach us.

He froze in his tracks. "What?"

"Well? Are you ghoul or human? Seems lately every time I see you, you're different."

"Oh, yeah, I kinda forgot about that…"

She cocked her eyebrow at him. "How can you forget about something like turning ghoul?" She turned her attention to me for a moment and then her eyes expanded. "Oh my god… Well, that explains it."

The look on her face startled me. "What?!"

"You're pregnant!"

Hancock and I exchanged a glance. I looked back over at her. "How could you possibly know that?"

She waved passively at my chest. "Those look bigger, for one. And unless you've had elective surgery recently, that's the only explanation."

Hancock gave her a sly look. "I'm a little surprised at you, checking out my wife like that."

"Hey, I know she's spoken for, but a gal can look."

He gave me an apologetic smile. "What can I say? She learned it from me."

I wasn't very amused. " _Your_ looking days are over, John Hancock."

"You ain't gotta tell me twice, Mrs. Hancock." He put his arm around my waist and started leading me back to the stairs. "We'll catch you later, Fahrenheit. I gotta take the old lady to see the doc."

"I'll be here."

Everyone was staring awkwardly at the once-again-ghoul mayor as we walked through the streets of Scollay Square. Hancock scowled lightly. "I should have addressed the town first… or at least had Fahrenheit do it."

Just then, we heard Fahrenheit shouting from the balcony. "Hey! Listen up, people!"

Everyone, including us, turned their attention toward her.

"I am highly disappointed by all the disrespectful gawking like you've never seen your own goddamn mayor before, and I'm sure if he were up here right now, he'd say the same where you all could hear it. We ain't some gossipy, passive-aggressive nuclear-family suburb with moronic mob mentality. Last I checked, Goodneighbor is of the people, for the people, whether they are ghoul, human, or 'undecided'."

A few light-hearted chuckles spread among the crowd.

"We don't play games. We speak our minds. So, If ya got something to say, then man up and fucking say it! Otherwise, mind your fucking business like the grown folks you're supposed to be. That's all for now."

Random greetings were suddenly being directed toward Hancock as he wore a satisfied smile. "That's my pumpkin."

I looked at him incredulously. "Did you just call her 'your pumpkin'?"

He took my hand and continued to the Memory Den. "Come on, love. Stay focused."

As we stepped into the building's basement, Dr. Amari's eyebrows lifted. "Well, if this isn't a surprise."

"Yeah," Hancock remarked flatly. "I'm a ghoul. Big surprise."

"No, I was referring to your wife being able to walk herself in here on her own, not knocking on death's door." She shot me a snarky grin. "So you've been taking your rad-x, I see. And you look…healthier… so I would assume you're off the junk?"

"That's not all." I replied, looking over at Hancock for him to join in the banter. "I think I may be expecting."

Dr. Amari didn't catch my meaning. "Expecting what?"

Hancock stepped in. "We think she got knocked up while I was human."

The doctor's eyes widened. "Well, that _is_ a surprise."

"Would you perform some kind of pregnancy test for us?"

She headed towards a medical table. "I could, but let me ask you something first. Have you been having your period?"

"Not recently, obviously."

"But were you having them before?"

I was a little puzzled. "Yeah, why?"

She turned back to me from the table. "Really? Were they regular?"

"Up until now, yeah."

She came over to me holding a small, empty jar. "Well, I'm a little shocked to hear you say that with as much radiation damage and recreational chems you took. What other symptoms are you experiencing?"

"Hell, all of it. Moodiness, fatigue, nausea, changes in my, uh, chest region."

She held the container out to me. "I just wanted to make sure we weren't wasting anyone's time here." I took it from her as she looked me up and down carefully. "Let me take a guess. Your last cycle was, what, 7, 8 weeks ago?"

"Probably more. I just attributed the absence of it to stress."

She motioned toward the plastic jar. "Fill that up for me so I can tell you what you want to hear."

After following her instruction, Hancock and I sat anxiously as she ran the necessary tests. It didn't take long for her to finish and come over to us with the conclusion. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Hancock. You did the impossible. I estimate the due date to be around late April."

With both of us smiling like crazy, Hancock grabbed hold of me in an aggressive hug and we rocked back and forth a little in victory.

"Now for the stuff you don't want to hear," she continued. "You've already quit the chems, which is good, but I'm sure you already know you shouldn't drink alcohol or smoke for the next several months."

Hancock and I pulled away from each other and sat back at attention. "Of course." I was well aware and already dreading that fact.

"Clean food and purified water only…"

"Got it."

"There's more. Rad-x poses a high risk of miscarriage, so you can't take it during pregnancy…"

Hancock and I shared a wide-eyed, horrified look. If his face could, I'm sure it would be as drained of color as I'm sure mine was.

"But you made it this far, so I wouldn't worry about any you may have already taken. Just don't take any more. So, that means no sex until your little bundle of joy is born, unless you want it to have extra limbs – or worse."

Hancock was still in shock. "Could you… expand on that?"

"I could, but I don't think you really need me to."

I found my voice and piped up, "What about radaway?"

"Radaway is potentially dangerous to a developing fetus as well. It's a diuretic, which can cause a reduction in plasma volume in the fetus and placental perfusion. Basically, that means the transfer of nutrients from you to the fetus would be weakened. But in an emergency – say, you soaked up a lot of rads in a really short period of time – you _should_ use it, since high levels of radiation are life-threatening to both you and the baby. However, it would be best if you fervently avoid radiation altogether and didn't use radaway at all, so casual use is not recommended."

"What if we use protection?"

Hancock groaned as Dr. Amari shook her head. "No. Too risky. I don't know what kind of 'protection' you were using before the war, but there's nothing available today that can effectively protect against radiation other than rad-x."

He raised his hand. "What if I pull ou –"

"No, Hancock! I shouldn't have to tell you that!" She let out an exasperated sigh. "Have you copulated since the transformation completed?"

"No," we both answered in deadpan unison.

"Good. You can resume being intimate after you deliver, but I would highly recommend pumping and purifying breastmilk for feeding from a bottle if you do."

I winced. "That sounds… inconvenient."

"Well, you have to ask yourself which is more inconvenient – that or abstinence."

Hancock and I looked at each other once more. He silently mouthed the word "abstinence" and I subtly nodded.

Dr. Amari smirked. "You say that now, but let's see how you feel about it when you have a bawling newborn that wants to eat every two hours. Now, I know you two, so I'm going to reiterate this to make sure you understand me perfectly," she said, straightening her posture. "Do _not_ under _any_ circumstances let what comes out of _that_ ," she said, pointing to Hancock's crotch, "anywhere inside you, got it?"

"Yes," we replied together again, downtrodden.

"Saliva, too."

"What?!" I cried as Hancock groaned, "Aw, Come on!"

"A couple light pecks here and there aren't a problem, but any act that involves excessive fluid swapping is out of the question."

I was forlorn. "How has humanity continued to populate at all under these conditions?" I mumbled bitterly.

"Parenthood always involves sacrifices, of course, but your case is a little unusual since ghouls can't reproduce. Most people don't normally have these kinds of obstacles in pregnancy... Keep your tongue in your mouth and your piece in your pants. I'm gravely serious." Her solemn face instantly changed to a cheerful smile. "But chin up, you two. It's not a death sentence. You're going to have a baby. This is what you wanted, yes?"

"Yes," we both replied.

"Now, I know this isn't your first, Felina, but if you have any concerns, feel free to come by and see me. I'm not really set up for this sort of thing, but I'll help in any way I can. Good luck, you two."


	5. The Look of Love

Later that night, once we got back to Sanctuary and put Shaun to bed, Hancock and I went to our own room and laid chastely side by side, staring up at the ceiling fan rotating slowly above us. After laying in wide-awake silence for entirely too long, I took hold of Hancock's hand and looked over at him by the moonlight pouring in through the gaps in the window treatments. He returned my longing gaze and brought my hand to his mouth for a dry kiss. After the brief moment of intimacy, his eyes closed as he took a deep breath and exhaled an aroused sigh. "I love you, Felina."

"I love you, John."

He rolled over on top of me, looking at me from above. "I always want you, ya know, but now that I know I can't have you," he said, pulling a tress of my hair to the front with his fingers, "I want you even more." He let the lock of hair loose, and the backs of his fingers caressed down my cheek.

"I know the feeling, querido."

He lowered his body onto me and held me tightly. I felt him getting hard between us and he started to groan in a frustrated manner.

I was getting a little tingly, too, when I gently pushed him off. "That's just making it worse."

He grunted as he fell back to his place beside me. "Yeah, I know." It was silent between us again as we both remained perfectly still and stiff, like awkward kids at a middle school dance.

I finally broke the silence with the tentative words, "Our relationship isn't based entirely on sex, is it?"

"No, of course not, love!"

"This is one hell of a test for us, though."

"This is only day one…" He grumbled.

"Seven months to go…"

"We're just going to have to be more creative is all," he said, sitting up and bracing himself on his elbows.

"Let's start with the basics," I said, as I smoothed a hand down to his aching erection.

I had barely touched him through his pants when he let out a relieved moan. I rolled my palm across the bulge there, lamenting how he was probably the hardest I had ever felt him.

His head reflexively fell back. "Are you sure that's safe?"

I slowed my rubbing to a stop when I felt the tiniest bit of moisture at the tip and withdrew my hand. "Well, if you have any doubt, you do it."

"Are you sure?"

"I think I would enjoy watching, if you'll let me."

I saw the tent in his pants swell excitedly. "Gladly." His hand drifted down to his waist and he grabbed hold of one end of the flag. He lifted his hips upward to pull the flag out from around him with one hand. Holding the now-freed fabric out beside the bed, he let it drop to the floor. "This doin it for ya?" He asked me jokingly.

I felt the space between my legs flash with warmth. "Actually, yes."

He smirked. "It only gets better from here, love." He brought his hand to the top of his shirt and popped his own buttons all the way down. His eyes followed mine as I gazed hungrily at his flesh being revealed little by little. He took my hand and guided it to his chest, and I began lightly running my fingertips across the uneven skin stretched across his tight muscles.

He went to the fly of his pants and slowly opened them, pulling the sides away from each other. He dipped one hand inside and gave himself a couple careful pumps hidden from my line of sight by his clothing. All I could see was the motion of it through his jeans as he bit his lip and softly growled. "Oh, Felina…"

I was already getting wound up, but the sound of him calling my name while he touched himself pushed me in an unusual way.

Next I knew, he was thrusting his hips up again as he shoved his pants down. I lunged over him and yanked them down to his ankles, eager to see the measurable confirmation of his desire for me hidden within. While I was doing this, he copped a feel of my still ridiculously sensitive breasts and I fell to the mattress, defeated. "Oh, fuck!" I cried. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Sorry," he breathed desperately as he wrapped his fingers around his swollen member. I watched intently as he slowly pumped and became more and more worked up with every stroke, my own arousal helplessly mirroring his. My hands started instinctively drawing near him. He watched me with faraway eyes, still taking long, drawn-out strokes, as I came closer. I recoiled a bit once I realized what I was doing. I had a lot of learned behavior to unlearn.

His stroking became a little more severe and he started moaning my name again. The sounds he made shot shivers down my spine as my mind began to fill in a picture of what we were both imaging was happening right then.

He pumped faster and faster, panting. "Oh, fuck, Felina!"

I was incredibly turned on by the whole vulgar display. "John…" I moaned, my hands starting to wander over myself without my permission.

"I want you so bad right now," he said in a stressed tone, pumping so furiously it looked like it should hurt.

 _This is torture_. I lost the will to stay back and wrapped my arms around his head, framing his face and kissing it all over.

He started thrusting into his own strokes, his body coming up off the mattress as he grunted and sputtered. I knew he was getting close, so I pushed myself back. As he turned away from me, his body went rigid and he came – regretfully out of my view.

He slowly turned back to me, his body randomly shivering and his brow curved in sympathy. "I feel really bad… about that," he admitted between elusive breaths.

"You shouldn't. It was really hot."

"I haven't had to do that since…"

"Yes?" I urged him on out of morbid curiosity.

"Ya know."

"Do I?"

He sighed. "The early days. When we first started traveling together."

I smirked. "Were you calling my name out back then, too?"

" _No_ , I couldn't," he answered defensively. "You were asleep only a couple feet away. But if you must know, yes… I was thinking about you."

"When?" I was intrigued. "Where were we?"

"Which time?" he asked seriously.

" _Which time_?! Dios mio, that speaks volumes!" I grinned smugly to myself as I added this information to my memories of that era. "You don't have to tell me any more." I wasn't as bold as him, pleasuring myself right next to him while we were camping, but I recalled catching myself thinking about him on more than one occasion when I should have been sleeping. "How did we keep our hands off each other back then?"

"Well," he began as he pulled his pants back up, "You were still repulsed by me, and I don't go where I ain't wanted."

"I wasn't repulsed by you!" I exclaimed defensively.

"Don't sugarcoat it, sweetheart. I know you ain't that way now, but back then, you really weren't comfortable around ghouls."

"Uncomfortable and repulsed are hardly the same thing. Besides, if I had that much of an issue with it, I wouldn't have asked you to come with me in the first place."

"Yeah, alright, I'll give you that." His eyes trailed over my body. "What about you? What are you gonna do?"

I squirmed a little bit. "Nothing. Don't worry about me."

"I can't have my wife going unfulfilled…"

I laid back down on the mattress. "We just have to keep in mind why we're doing this." I put a hand to my stomach and looked down at it, trying to imagine the life inside. It didn't really seem real to me yet. I tried to nestle myself more cozily into the blankets. "Can you just hold me?"

He smiled. "I can do that." He wrapped his arms around me and I nudged myself closer to him. I eventually fell asleep that way.


	6. Sweater Weather

I awoke before the sun was up to the familiar nausea of morning sickness and rushed to the bathroom to handle things. As the queasiness subsided, I caught myself reaching for my cigarettes in the breast pocket of my housedress. I looked down at the pack in my hand with dramatic melancholy. _Fuuuck_. I frustratedly squeezed the soft pack in my palm and headed back to the bedroom.

Hancock was sprawled out across the bed with one leg dangling over the side of the mattress and an arm across his chest, snoring loudly. I crossed the room to the arm chair where his frock coat was draped and shoved the half-empty pack of Grey Tortoises into his coat pocket.

Looking over longingly at my sleeping husband again, I considered my clothing. The easy-access housedress was going to have to go. I dug through the bureau drawers until I found my old black suit I used to wear before Hancock and I started tagging each other. I tossed my blue dress into the pile of dirty laundry on the floor and dressed myself in the inconvenient and excessive layers of the business attire. Taking a look at myself in the full length mirror behind the door, I examined the suit on me. It had been a long while since I had donned it, the last time being at the peak of my chem abuse, and I filled the seams out better than my sickly-thin frame did back then. Satisfied with myself, I went to the kitchen to start breakfast.

I couldn't get the stove warmed up fast enough. It was the first official day of autumn, and it was unsurprisingly chilly. As the muted sunlight of an overcast sky started to glow dimly through the pinholes of the ragged flags doubling as curtains in the house's main room, Shaun sluggishly emerged from the hallway with Dogmeat close behind, rubbing sleepily at his eyes as he sat down at the dining table. "Hey, mom."

"Buenos días, hijo," I said with forced cheerfulness, turning the Cram over in the skillet. "Why don't you start setting the table?"

"Okay." He came over to the counter and started pulling plates down from the cabinet. "What's with the suit?"

"Nothing. I was just too cold to wear the dress, today."

He looked at me skeptically. "You said last night you would tell me what happened at the doctor."

"I did," I confirmed.

"Well?"

"Let's just wait for your dad, okay?"

"Mom," he said seriously as he abandoned the stack of plates on the table. "If something is wrong, you should just tell me. It's not really fair to keep it from me."

"Nothing is wrong, hijo, I promise. If you're that impatient, go wake up your dad."

He sighed. "Okay."

After a few minutes, when he came back from the hallway, I heard the bathroom door closing behind Hancock in confirmation that he was up. Shaun finished setting the table and had a seat while I filled the dishes with food.

"No eggs?" Shaun asked, disappointed.

"Shaun, honey, if I ever see another mirelurk egg, it will be too soon."

"But I like eggs."

My stomach turned at the thought of it. "Don't even talk about it right now," I beseeched him. "I can't handle it."

Dogmeat put his paws on the table, standing on his hind legs and sniffing at the meal.

"Nuh uh," I said, shooing him away from the table. "Hijo, put the dog out while we're eating."

"Yes, mom," he replied reluctantly.

A moment later, Hancock groggily joined us at the table. "It's early," he whined with no purpose.

"I know, querido, but you'll live."

He and I started digging into our breakfast, but Shaun only sat there, stiff.

"What's the matter, hijo?"

"What happened at the doctor?"

We stopped eating. Still looking down at his plate, I heard Hancock mumble almost inaudibly to himself, "It's too early…"

I figured there was no sense beating around the bush anymore. "Sometimes when two people love each other very much –"

"Ugh!" He groaned. "You're having a baby?!"

"Uh… yeah," I replied, taken aback by his response.

" _That's_ gross. I should have seen this coming the way you two go at it…" He pushed his plate away from him. "Can I be excused? I'd like to go play outside now."

I squeezed my eyes shut tight for a moment. When I reopened them, I glanced at Hancock, bemused.

"So the boy already knows about sex." He resumed eating and shrugged at me. " _I_ didn't tell him."

"How can I not?" Shaun chimed in with an offended tone. "You two don't make much of an effort to keep it down back there," he said, waving an arm at the hallway.

My palm instinctively covered my face as I felt all the blood rush to my cheeks. "Yes, Shaun, you're excused."

"Thank god!" He stomped away from the table and out the side door where Dogmeat had been ceaselessly pawing to come back in.

I just sat there in embarrassed awe as Hancock continued to eat.

Never looking up from his plate, he remarked, "He's more than old enough to know, Felina."

"Yeah, but… he could hear us…" I pointed out distractedly.

He sighed. "Can you not? It's too early." He pulled the mentats out of his pocket and pinched a couple tablets from the tin.

I resumed eating. "Yeah, sorry."

I felt like everything was unravelling around me.

* * *

After we ate, Hancock insisted on cleaning the kitchen for me, so I settled in on the couch, unsure what to do with myself. I was mentally drained, sexually frustrated, and actively craving nicotine. On top of everything, the early autumn draft was already creeping in through the shoddy walls and window panes, and I was cold.

I got up to grab a blanket, and as I came back to the couch, a certain pre-war book caught my eye on the shelf. I took it with me back to the couch and thumbed it open to the pages I had folded down when I last looked through it and started working out some details in my head.

Once Hancock was finished, he plopped down next to me.

I turned to him and searched his ebony eyes for any wavering as I asked him, "Are you happy, mi amor?"

His supplements had kicked in and he was past his morning crankiness. With genuine love in his expression, he didn't disappoint. "Things have been kinda rough, lately, and there's more rough days ahead, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm okay with all of it. I have you and Shaun, and my wife is carrying my baby. I couldn't be happier," he said, pulling me close. "Why, something weighing on ya?"

"Is there anything tying you to this region, anymore?"

"Just you, love." He ran his palms down my arms to my hands and grasped them.

"You know how I feel about cold weather, and I don't want to endure another New England winter when there's a whole world out there to explore…" I trailed off as my thoughts switched gears. "Have you ever heard of Las Vegas?"

"So what are you saying?"

"I think we should take Shaun and go west. Back to where I grew up. We can see what the Mojave Desert has going on, if there's a purpose for us there."

"I've told you before, I'd follow you anywhere, and I meant it," he said as he brought my hands up between us and kissed them tenderly. "I know this has been on your mind for a while, but…" he looked down at my stomach, "you don't mean right now, do ya?"

"It would have to be right now. I'd rather travel across America pregnant than with an infant. It would be years before I could go back to the desert if we don't do it right now." Tears started pouring down my face.

He brushed his finger across my cheek. "Hey, we'll do this however you want to, love. Stop crying."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it."

"We just need to talk about this a little bit, first. I want to make sure, as emotional as you are, that you ain't making any rash decisions that you'll regret later."

"I think I'll go crazy if I have to stay here all winter – cold, trapped indoors, nothing to distract me. Plus, it would really mean a lot to me if little Rosalita or John was born back in my home territory."

"That's understandable, but –"

"Look." I turned the book in my lap toward him to show him what I had. It was a collection of maps I had already previously marked and measured with the best routes. "This is Boston," I said, pointing to the edge of Massachusetts.

"I see that."

"Since winter is so close, we should go as directly south as we can at first, following the coast pretty closely," I explained as I slid my finger down the map. "Really more of a southwest, but that's neither here nor there." I kept sliding my finger across the page, and his eyes followed my movements, stopping with me once I was pointing at Las Vegas. "Altogether, this is roughly 3,000 miles."

"Jesus…"

"The average person walks about, oh, three miles per hour –"

"Wait, so you want to _walk_?! Why not take the vertibird?"

"First of all, that's the Minutemen's vertibird, and I feel bad enough about deserting them. Second, we have no way to be sure we can even keep it fueled up along the way."

"But don't you think it will be kinda dangerous? And difficult in your later months? Will we even be able to make it there before…"

"I already thought about all that. So, that's about 1,000 hours of travel time. In simple math, that means if we only travelled ten hours a day, we would be there in 100 days – three months. Ish."

"I ain't tryin to piss on your parade, love, but that's more than three months, even traveling every day. Doesn't that sound pretty grueling given your condition? You gonna be up for that?"

"I've still got seven months before I'm due. Even at a leisurely pace, we should make it in plenty of time.

He looked at me with concerned skepticism. "It's easy for you to say that now, but you've been pregnant before. I ain't gotta tell ya that it's gonna get physically more difficult for you the more time that passes."

"You're right. You don't have to tell me. I know what I'm up against. If you recall, I'm pretty tenacious, and," I started singing that song he's so found of, "… _Whatever Felina wants, Felina gets_ …"

He grinned. "Alright, alright, love. Ya got me there. I think you should sleep on it, first, though. "

"No, I already made up my mind a long time ago. I know this is what I want. I just need to make sure _you_ can handle leaving."

"Of course! If ya got your heart set on it, I don't have a choice. I can't be away from you, and I ain't gonna keep you here if you ain't happy. My home is wherever you are."

I clapped the atlas closed. "So it's settled then."

"Uh, sure. We would need to get a few things in order here before we go anywhere."

"Of course."

"You wanna break the news to Shaun?"

I frowned. "Maybe later."

"Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to that either after what happened at breakfast." He fell backwards into the cushions, exasperated. "Child-rearing is hard – in more ways than one."

I put a hand over my gurgling stomach. "Tell me about it."


	7. Swept Away

We sat there for a while talking further about our plans. We thought about flipping a bottle cap for the responsibility of telling Shaun, but we didn't.

"Alright my little desert rose." Hancock got up from the couch and kissed me on the forehead. "I'm gonna run to Goodneighbor for a couple hours. I need to talk to Fahrenheit about what we've been discussing."

"Will you be home in time for lunch?"

"Sure, no problem."

"In that case, will you invite Preston to eat with us before you go? I need to talk to him, too."

"Done," he replied just before closing the door behind him.

I was feeling a little better after my discussion with Hancock, but I was still generally uncomfortable and anxious. I played my guitar for a while, trying to figure out a song that was stuck in my head to distract myself from wanting a cigarette, much like I did when I quit chems. Not only was it not working, but it really wasn't doing anything for me in terms of being cold and tense. A solution came to mind. I poked my head out front to see what Shaun was up to. He and Billy were rifling through a bin of discarded parts by the door of the workshop while Dogmeat rolled around in the grass, belly up. _He should be busy for a while…_

I found a clean towel and headed to the shower. I turned the faucet handle and waited for the steam to start billowing from the stream of falling water. I stepped under the showerhead. Hot, steamy, _wonderful._ The heavenly water pouring down over my cold, achy body quickly chased the chill right out of me and my muscles started to loosen up. I just stood there for a while, relishing every moment.

I lathered my messy hair with soap, and momentarily doubted if I really wanted to leave Sanctuary behind, since I had a working shower there. Yes, it was that good. I physically shook the idea out of my head as I rinsed my hair. As I scrubbed the rest of my body directly with the bar of flowery-smelling soap, I let my thoughts take me where ever else they wanted.

After a moment, I realized my hands had stopped at my fuller-than-usual breasts. I closed my eyes and let my hands do what they wanted to do…

Highlights of Hancock filled my head as my fingers wandered south…

As built up as my desire had been, it didn't take much to push me over the edge. Shortly after, the hot water ran out. _Good timing._

I left the shower feeling like a new woman. I waltzed to the kitchen and started pulling tatos out of the fridge. I was humming a pre-war tune as I chopped them, filling a bowl with the tiny red cubes. After finishing the last one, I tried to spin the knife in my hand on a whim. It slipped out of my grip and flew across the counter. _That really_ is _dangerous! Oh, well…._

I seasoned the tatos and tasted them. It was good enough. _I can't wait to get back home where there are peppers for real salsa_... I swished my hips rhythmically as I moved to the cupboard where I pulled the canisters of razorgrain wheat and corn flour. I tapped the pantry door closed with my hip and danced to the counter to start making tortillas. Once I had completed that task, I dug around in the fridge for a hunk of ground brahmin meat.

I was still humming to myself and browning the meat when Hancock came through front door.

He smiled and lifted his head as he took in the food's aroma. "Smells good in here."

"Gracias. How did it go, mi amor?"

"Fine," he replied distractedly. "Preston should be here in about half an hour."

"Perfect."

"Do you need me to do anything?"

"I got everything pretty much done now."

"You seem to be in high spirits," he remarked with a sly look, coming closer. "How was your shower?"

I froze in place for a moment. Turning the burner under the skillet off, I avoided his gaze as I asked, "What shower?"

He was pretty close now. "You smell like soap…"

I held my hands up. "I had to wash up from handling raw meat is all."

He had me pinned in the counter's corner. "Your hair looks a little wet." He began to reach out to it.

I shimmied past him. "I don't have time for this right now. I have to get ready. Will you go round Shaun up?"

"Whatever you say, love."

And so I got back in the shower. Already properly cleaned from before, I was able to just stand under the stream of water and enjoy it. I leaned against the tile wall as the water washed over me. My incessant humming turned into actual singing:

" _The look of love is in your eyes_

_The look your smile can't disguise…_ "

As my hands started to instinctively wander over me, I found myself fantasizing not about any of the times Hancock and I had actually made love, but instead about a time before we had ever known each other that way…

…

_The very last time we had traveled to the Glowing Sea together, the blindingly bright sun overhead appeared to wave like a reflection in a pool of water, presumably from the high radiation since it was still too early in the year for hot weather. Or maybe it's blisteringly hot in the Glowing Sea all the time. I wouldn't know. I've never been there sans power armor._

_We came across the steeple of a church in the distance appearing to be somewhat low to the ground from our perspective at the base of a sickly yellow dune. Out of curiosity, I started steering us toward it. Upon closer inspection, the structure was partially buried, sunken into the dirt. We could see down into it from the ground we were standing on through one of the semi-submerged, tall windows._

_"Ferals," Hancock remarked quietly, pointing at the back of the chapel. A rather large group of them was congregating between the pews._

_My voice came through the power armor helmet with that familiar tinny reverb. "And I sincerely doubt they are attending mass right now." I turned my head to the side to see if Hancock had thought my remark was at all funny, but he was gone. I heard his gun echoing in the church's halls and peered back inside to see him firing from a window on the opposite end. They all started rushing toward his direction, but couldn't get to him from his vantage point. "Well, if we're really doing this…" I started picking off ferals from where I was._

_When there were only a few left just outside of my range, I leaned further in the window to try and get a better shot. I lost my footing and fell in. It was a pretty long drop, and it probably would have hurt if I wasn't in the power armor. I jumped to my feet just as I was being swarmed by the handful of feral ghouls. I popped off shots left and right, taking them down pretty easily, but after four or five, I was still being attacked. Starting to regain my focus from the disorienting fall, I realized I was surrounded by a dozen or more._

_I kept firing, but they kept coming. There were so many of them they were able to knock me over, power armor and all, and I hit the floor face first._ This is it. This is how I die…

_Hancock, out of nowhere, dropped from above and started taking them down with controlled ferocity. His shotgun was holstered and he was nimbly slicing at them with his knife, cutting through them as relaxed as one would lazily swat flies on a hot day. I scrambled backwards, trying to put some distance between myself and the scuffle as I sent my bullets in to help in any way, but he didn't need it._

_I slowed to a stop and watched him gut and decapitate the last couple ferals. I had never seen anything like it._

_He held his hand out to me. "You alright, sister?" His sensual, gravelly voice echoed ominously in the massive, empty church._

_I tentatively reached for him. "Yeah…"_

_Once he had my hand in his, he pulled me close. As heavy as the armor was, I could have held my position if I really wanted, but instead I let him bring me into his arms._

_With one arm around my waist, the hand that still held his knife spun it artfully, slinging the splattered blood from the blade before he let it slide into his boot. "Don't scare me like that."_

_"I won't…"_

_"Hey, are you sure you're alright? You seem kinda spacey. Did that fall knock your brain around or somethin'?"_

_I pushed myself away from him. "No, I'm fine." I glanced around me at the decorative relics in the chapel. "This place is almost pretty, despite its location."_

_"Why? Thinking of getting remarried here?"_

_I shot my glance back to him. "What?"_

_"Hey, sorry. I was just kidding." He looked deathly regretful of his comment. "Too soon?"_

_"No, I was just thinking…"_

I was just thinking how if I didn't have to have that stupid helmet on, I would have kissed him right then.

_"…Thanks for saving me."_

_"Don't mention it, darlin'." The smile he gave me was intoxicating enough, but the look in his eyes…_

_…_

My fantasy parted from reality at that point.

…

_I exit the power armor and the radiation feels warm and rejuvenating, like the heat I feel for Hancock. I give him the kiss that was originally meant for him on that day._

_He kisses back with the electricity I know he's capable of. We start stripping each other, right there in the church…_

My hands clutched at my bosom exactly how he would, massaging in circles with my nipples grazing the spaces between my parted fingers.

_He slams my front against the wall and runs his hands across my bottom before bringing his body close to my backside, grinding me into the wall. My hands slide up the windows and his palms cover their backs, intertwining our fingers. He pushes up against me, our naked bodies dappled with the colorful spots through the illuminated stained glass…_

I was practically hugging the tile wall at this point. "Oh, Hancock…" I tried to keep the volume of my whimpers quieter than the running water.

_His rock-hard, fire-hot mass rubs at my aching entrance from behind and I can feel myself getting wet for him…_

"Oh, god, give it to me…"

_He slides in, the glorious friction vibrating and radiating through me…_

My fingers were doing the work he would do, but not as artfully. _How does he do it? Fucking witchcraft is what is…_

I detached the shower head and put it to task. The pulse setting was no substitute for my amorous ghoul husband's skills, but it was decisively better than my manual attempt. I was getting close and having trouble stifling my whimpers. "Oh, John, come inside me… I want to feel it…" I was gasping and panting quietly as the wave of release struck me, my trembling legs nearly caving under me. I grabbed onto the faucet for support.

The water was starting to run cool, so I shut it off. I was still reeling a little when I opened the shower curtain.

And there was Hancock, standing right in the doorway. It was like I was looking at him through a dream filter with the clouds of steam rolling through the bathroom.

I reached for my towel and wrapped it around me. "How long have you been there?!"

"Long enough." I noticed him discreetly closing his pants up before he leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. "Thanks for the show, love," he said with a sinister smile.

"You know what?" I was squeezing the moisture out of my hair. "I want to be mad, but I can't say I wouldn't do the same if the roles were reversed."

"I knew you'd understand."

I was mortified by a sudden thought. "Did you go get Shaun like I asked?"

"No, sorry. I couldn't pull myself away from your performance long enough to."

"It's just as well that you didn't." I moved past him. "Will you go get him now?"

"Well, that depends. Is there an encore while you're getting dressed?"

"No."

He sighed wistfully. "Then, I'll go get him."


	8. Torches

I put my suit on once more and wondered how long I'd be able to wear it before I got too big to fit it. Before I left the bedroom, I gathered up the pieces of the Minutemen General uniform and folded it altogether neatly. But there was one piece missing.

I went to Shaun's room and glanced over the mess inside. _He's not going to be able to bring all this junk with him._ I sifted through some of the tools, broken toaster pieces, and circuit boards to find the tri-cornered military hat. When I picked it up, my eyes started getting teary. _Fuck, not now._ I dropped the hat to catch the stream of tears from running down my cheek.

The sound of the front door shutting was followed by the excited voice of Shaun telling Preston about his latest project while he responded with gentle encouraging phrases.

A moment later, Hancock poked his head into Shaun's room where I was still standing. "Hey. You ready?"

I dried it up real quick. "No, but it's now or never."

He came to me and wrapped his arms around me. "It doesn't have to be now unless you want it to be."

"I want it now. There's just no way around me getting all emotional about it."

He gave me a quick kiss. "Everything's gonna be alright, love." He took my hand and led me to the hall. "C'mon."

Shaun and Preston were already seated at the dining table. I joined them while Hancock thoughtfully served the food, still adamant about proving he wasn't sexist.

My eyes must have still been tell-tale puffy from fighting a cry, because Preston looked incredibly concerned. "Is everything okay, General?"

Shaun scoffed. "She's fine. She's just _pregnant_."

My melancholy instantly rewired to childish, defensive anger. "He already _knows_ that, smart-mouth."

"Yeah, I'm sure everyone does." He made a high-pitched mocking voice, "Oh, por favor, mi amor…"

Hancock and I both glared at him and shouted in unison, "Shaun!"

Preston was visibly uncomfortable by our little exchange. He quickly tried to run interference. "If this tastes as good as it looks, I'm in for a treat."

I was still fuming when Hancock sat down, exasperated. "You are."

"Thanks for inviting me over, by the way," Preston remarked before taking his first bite. "This is really amazing, Felina! Where did you learn to cook like this?"

"My mom. She grew up in El Paso."

"She was a good woman."

I turned my focus back to the task at hand. "So what happened with the distress call, yesterday?"

"Well," he paused to swallow a bite. "I delegated, like you said."

"How did it go?"

"Smoothly."

"Good. And how do you feel about that?"

"Pretty good. You can depend on me, General."

I hadn't taken a single bite yet. "Preston, I'm not the General anymore."

"Don't be ridiculous –"

"I just don't know how else to say this," the tears started pushing at me again. "Can you do it?"

He paused with a mouthful of food and looked at me, perplexed. "Do what?"

"Can you be the General? Can you do it, Preston?"

"Hey, no worries, Felina. I'll be the General as long as you need me to."

"How does 'forever' sound?"

Shaun started picking up on the vibe and stopped eating, staring daggers at me.

Preston wasn't on the same page quite yet. "You can still be the General without having to go out in the field, Felina, even after your baby is born. We can still use your strategic expertise and guidance –"

I was shaking my head. My mind was all mixed up with hormones and emotions, and the words were difficult to find. "I need to know you can take over, Preston. Our family is going to leave the Commonwealth."

Shaun jumped out of his chair. "What?! First a baby and now this?! Why are you doing this to me?!"

Preston was stunned. After a short pause, he motioned to Shaun and remarked, "What he said."

I could tell Shaun was fighting back a cry, too. "I have friends here!"

"I do, too, hijo."

"Then why are we leaving?"

Hancock, unfettered, interjected, "Should have done the cap toss."

I gave Shaun a stern look. "This was a mistake –"

"Damn right it is!"

"Shaun! You and I will talk about this later! You're _excused_. Please, go to your room."

"Gladly." He slammed his bedroom door behind him.

I looked apologetically at Preston. "I'm really sorry about this. All of it, actually."

He gazed at me with a soft expression. "Why _are_ you leaving, Felina?"

"It's nothing personal. Actually, I love the people here, but this isn't my home. I have been promising myself since before the war that I would get to go back to the southwest eventually. The only reason I came here in the first place is because the military stationed Nate here. "

"But doesn't it feel like home now? I'm not trying to be callous, but none of your people are going to be in the southwest, Felina. After all this time, it's not likely unless they turned ghoul or unless Vault-Tec had _two_ cryogenic experiments going on."

"It's too cold here, Preston. And don't get me wrong, the coast here is beautiful, but the desert holds a special place in my heart. I want my baby to be born there, like I was. I can't be talked out of it."

"But the Minutemen… and Goodneighbor, too…" He looked pleadingly over at Hancock.

"She can't be talked out of it," he echoed before taking another bite.

"The Minutemen are stronger than ever now, and they don't need me. Hancock and I would be more useful elsewhere." I got up from the table and walked to the shelf where I had placed the General uniform. "But let's not forget, their revival has always been _your_ dream, Preston. They would have disappeared completely if it wasn't for you." I held the garments out to him. "You deserve to lead them more than me. More than anyone."

"Believe me, I would if I could –"

"You _can_. The only thing stopping you is your own self-doubt. And that's why I'm telling you now your self-doubt is bullshit. Fate put me here to help you get started, but it was never in the cards for me to stay. It's up to you now."

He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes closed and the corners of his mouth drawn down. "Well, if you can't be talked out of it… I don't really have a choice." He tentatively stood up and reached for the uniform. "I won't let you down."

I hugged him. "I know you won't." During our embrace, I looked over his shoulder at Hancock. He was looking back at me with a sweet grin.

When we pulled away, Preston kept gazing down in amazement at the uniform I gave him.

"Yeah," I told him, "The hat is in Shaun's room. I'll get it for you."

"Actually, do you mind if I go talk to him?"

I gave him a mildly surprised look. "No, go right ahead."

As he went down the hall toward my son's room, I returned to the table next to Hancock. "How did I do?"

"Wonderful, love. Couldn't have done better myself." He sat back in his chair. "I told you everything would be okay."

"That you did, querido. That you did." I finally started digging into my food. "You never did tell me about your talk with Fahrenheit."

"Yeah, that was by design. Her reaction was somewhere in between Preston's and Shaun's."

"Is that good or bad?"

"That doesn't matter. All that matters is that I know she can handle things."

Later, when Preston emerged from Shaun's room, he still didn't have the hat.

"I'm sorry, Preston. I can get it from him before we leave."

"No, I told him to keep it as a reminder of us back here in the Commonwealth and how grateful we are of everything your family has done for us here. I think overall, he's feeling better about things now."

I smiled. "Preston, you are as good as they come. I'm going to miss you."

"You'll be missed, too. I hope you know that."

Hancock stood up from the table. "Enough of this sappy, sad-bastard crap. Clear your schedule for the rest of the night, Preston. You're coming to Goodneighbor with us."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why are we going to Goodneighbor?"

"To party, of course."

"Right now?"

"Now works for me… unless you need a shower first," he added with a grin.

* * *

I went with Preston, who was already donning the General's duds, to the communications radio in the workshop to make an announcement on Radio Freedom about my endorsement of the change in leadership. I stepped aside and watched with silent pride as Preston addressed the Commonwealth for the first time as the General of the Minutemen.

Back at the house, Hancock was supposed to be ushering Shaun over to Marcy's for the night so we could go to Goodneighbor, but when I got back, he was still there. He was wearing the tricorn general hat and had a mischievous look directed at me when I came through the door.

I looked over at Hancock, questioningly. "What's going on?"

Shaun answered me before he could. "I'm going, too."

"Oh, no you're not…"

"Don't tell me it's too dangerous when you're about to drag me halfway across the globe. There could be towns waaay more dangerous than Goodneighbor out there."

"That's beside the point."

"Yeah, but dad is the mayor of Goodneighbor, and I've never even seen it or met any of his friends."

"Yeah," I folded my arms. "For good reason."

Hancock put his arm around my waist. "Come on, love. He's got a valid point. He's going to be everywhere we are from here on out, and we need to get used to looking out for him wherever we may be. And the boy needs to learn to look out for himself, too."

"That doesn't mean we should intentionally…"

"What harm could it do? Goodneighbor is still my people and he's my son. He's gonna be treated with the same respect as me. And if things get rough, I can always send him to Daisy's."

"Please, mom? It's the least you could do since you're ruining my life today."

"Ruining your life? For fuuuuh –Pete's sake! Fine. You can come."

He pumped his fist and hissed, "Yesss!"

"Dios mio…"

Shaun was brimming with excitement as we landed the vertibird on the State House. He was trying to step off the aircraft before the skids even hit the roof, but Dogmeat hung onto the seat of the boy's pants through his teeth until we were safely on the ground.

Hancock hopped out behind him. "Hey, killer, come with me. I want you to meet my right hand gal."

"Okay!" They headed toward the stair hatch with the dog at their heels.

Preston stepped down and offered me a hand. "Been a long time since I've been here."

I took his hand. "You haven't been back since you came with me, have you?"

"Haven't really had a reason to. Are they still stabbing people by the front gate?"

I chuckled. "Not as much, recently."

Hancock showed Fahrenheit off to Shaun and vice versa, and then he brought the two of them to the balcony to address the town. Not wanting to overcrowd the balcony, Preston and I hung back and listened from inside the door.

"Listen up, Goodneighbor. I've got an announcement to make."

He stalled for time as more of the people gathered below. When he was satisfied with the attendance, he continued. "This here," he said motioning to our little boy, "is my son, Shaun. He is to be treated as good as you treat your beloved mayor while he's here, or else there will be hell to pay."

As everyone mumbled among themselves, Shaun leaned over the railing for a closer look with his feet coming off the ground, and a feeling of panic washed over me. Without having to look, Hancock instinctively pulled him back by his shirt with the expertise of a seasoned parent, and I calmed down.

One of the citizens on the ground called up playfully, "Is he as dangerous with a knife as you, Hancock?"

"He's quite deadly, don't you worry about that. His body count is higher than mine was at his age," he said, patting the boy on top of the tricorn hat. "Furthermore, I managed to knock up my wife while I was human, so our little family will be expanding even more."

Everyone called out a mangled mix of congratulations from below.

"So," he continued, "That means the day has finally come…" He paused dramatically, looking around at his people. "I'll be passing leadership on to Fahrenheit."

The town began to talk excitedly all at once, with only one phrase decipherable over all the others. "Why?"

"It ain't fair for you to keep me all to yourselves, ya dig? Felina and I are leaving the Commonwealth and taking our death-dealing and justice on tour across America." He put a hand on Fahrenheit's shoulder. "Now I know you all respect Fahrenheit and I know she has been handling things as good – if not better – than me when I'm away. She's like the daughter I never had, and I've taught her well. She is more than capable of filling my shoes. She has a good head on her shoulders and I know I'm leaving you in good hands."

The murmurs below only continued to grow. "You can't leave, Hancock!"

"I can and I am. But before I leave, I need to know that all of you are going to continue living up to the standards I have set. Now, what town in the Commonwealth is the best place for those who truly know how to live free?"

"Goodneighbor!"

"And what town never takes shit as it's handed to them if it's not fair…?"

"Goodneighbor!"

"What town will always fight for what's right for themselves _and_ their neighbors, no matter what...?"

"Goodneighbor!"

"You owe it to me, and yourselves, to keep it that way. Can you do that for me?"

Shouts of affirmation rose up, organizing into a spine-tingling rally: "Of the people! For the people!"

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Hancock took in a serene breath. "Now, I ain't gone yet, so who's up for one more party?"

A favorable reaction of cheers spread below. Hancock looked back and forth between Shaun and Fahrenheit with a bittersweet smile. "And that's how it's done," he told them both just before turning back to the doorway, coat tails flowing behind him. He walked straight past Preston and me to the office, shutting the double doors behind him.

I stepped out onto the balcony and looked at the cheering crowd below. Among the people standing in the street, I saw a group of unexpected faces approaching from the right, joining the crowd. It was Lynn, Danse, Nick, Piper, and another new iteration of Deacon hiding behind his usual dark sunglasses. He pushed the shades down his nose and winked at me before pushing them back up. Lynn grabbed Danse's hand and waved enthusiastically.

I turned to Preston. "Do you mind taking Shaun down to meet Lynn and them? I'm going to go check on Hancock."

"No problem, Gen – I mean, Felina."

I flashed him a smile. "Thanks."

I tentatively walked to the doors and carefully spread them open a little. "Can I come in?"

He was standing at his desk leaning forward onto his palms with his back to me. "Yeah, sure."

I closed the doors behind me and approached him slowly. "Are you okay, querido?"

"Yeeeah," he answered, drawn out and quiet. "Goodneighbor was my first love, but _you_ , you're the love of my life." His head dipped back as he threw a couple mentats at the back of his throat, washing them down with a healthy swig from a fifth of vodka. He set the bottle on the desk with a thump and turned toward me. His voice sounded strained as he said, "It's just hard to let go, ya know?"

"I, uh… I'm sorry, John. Should we… should we call this whole thing off?"

"No, no, not after all that," he said roughly, generally motioning back to the town square, his shoulders rigid and his face downward in equal parts pained and vexed. "It's already done. I just need to adjust, is all. Don't let it worry you, love."

I didn't realize the move was going to affect him that severely until witnessing how torn up he was. Feeling guilty for being the cause of his anguish, tears started sneaking into my eyeballs. A- _gain_.

He straightened his posture and softened his expression, moving toward me with his arms out. "Come on, love, don't do _that_!"

"I'm so sorry! I'm not trying to make this about me, I promise!"

"Shhh." He put one hand around my back and the other behind my head, cradling it to his chest. "I know you aren't. Just calm down, or you're going to make me get all weepy, too."

He just held me quietly while I sobbed, trying to regain control over myself. After a while, I looked up at him. The sight of a tear in the corner of his shiny, black eyes jolted me out of my crying. I was just making it worse for him. I reached my hand up to his face to brush the tear away, but he grabbed hold of my wrists and took a step back.

"Not a good idea," he said, wiping it dry himself. "I'm sure that falls under the category of fluids you're supposed to avoid."

I looked down at my boots. "Right."

We continued to stand there without a word between us when the doors to the office cracked open.

Fahrenheit stepped in with confidence. "I need to address something, Hancock."

"Shoot."

"I couldn't help but notice that that Minuteman General got to have the official clothes of _his_ new title, so you gonna come off that red frock coat, or what?"

He smirked. "Not a chance in hell, Fahrenheit."

"I guess this old thing will have to do then," she replied sarcastically, tugging at the edges of Maxson's battlecoat that she was still wearing. "You promised them a party. So, what the hell are you doing up here with your thumb up your ass?"

He laughed quietly to himself. "Ya got me, there." He grabbed my hand and headed toward the door. "We're coming."

"I'll see you down there." She disappeared from the office.

Hancock paused at the door to remark, "Goddammit, I'm gonna miss her."


	9. Let the Good Times Roll

We came downstairs to the Third Rail to find a line of people waiting outside, and my body started humming with excited anticipation for what lay ahead of us that night. When we pushed our way to the front, Ham opened the door for us. Hancock instructed him briefly on an improvised attendance policy before we proceeded.

I looked over at Hancock as we walked down the bar's stairs. "Velvet rope much?" I asked him jokingly.

"Hey, I don't have anything against anyone in particular attending our little soiree, but this place is unbearable when it gets crowded. Slows Chuck down, too."

I thought back to the night Fahrenheit and I were swiping bottles from the bar and drinking in the alley when the whole town thought the Brotherhood had killed him. "True."

Fahrenheit, Whitechapel Charlie, Magnolia, and her band were the only other people inside already.

"Oh, good," Fahrenheit remarked. "You finally showed up for your own shindig."

Magnolia approached us, her swinging hips shimmering as the sequins in her dress grabbed and reflected the bar's dim lighting. "Congratulations, stud!" She said to my husband. She turned to me. "And you, too. You're a lucky girl. Take care of this one for me, will ya?"

"Yeah, sure."

"So, did you ever learn to play that guitar that Hancock sweet-talked my band out of?"

"A little."

"You may have to show us what you got later."

"Oh, no no no…"

"This is your last chance, hon." She flashed a half smile. "Think about it." She brushed her soft fingertips along my arm before heading back to the stage to help the band set up equipment.

Shaun and Dogmeat came barreling down the stairs with Preston trailing slowly behind him. "This place is sooo cool!"

"Waaait a minute." I glared at Hancock. "Shaun can't come in here."

Shaun looked up at me, the too-big tricorn hat sliding down the back of his head a little. "Why not?"

Hancock shrugged. "Yeah, why not?"

"Because this is a _bar_!"

"So?" Hancock was heading toward Charlie who was pouring him some liquor. "I don't know what you were expecting when I said 'party'." He guzzled half his beverage.

"He's too young to dri –"

"If you say so." He bent down closer to Shaun, alcohol in hand. "You heard your mom. No drinking, okay?"

I narrowed my eyes, flustered. "No, that's not what I –"

Shaun raised his hand level with his face. "Okay, no drinking. Got it." He skittered off to the stage and started bothering the band. I heard Magnolia comment to him on his hat, calling him a cutie, and he excitedly began telling her all kinds of tales. If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was hitting on her.

I sighed, throwing my hands up in defeat. "Fuck it."

Hancock raised his glass. "That's the spirit."

Ham was letting more people inside and the place began to fill up. Magnolia finally took the stage and the band started to play something jazzy. Her soulful voice filled the air with scintillation, setting an energetic tone.

 

" _Like an earthquake, starting to roll_

_I felt my world shake, out of control_

_Like a world war starting to brew_

_Baby, it's just you._

_Like a cyclone, wild and extreme_

_I got my mind blown, stalking your dreams_

_Waking up without a clue_

_Cause baby, it's just you.."._

 

All kinds of people, some I knew and some I didn't remember, were steady coming up to me and offering their congratulations on the baby. Every interaction was short, but they were incessant and it was dizzying.

Nick and Piper shooed them away, coming over to me. Nick had a glass in each hand. He took a sip from one and offered the other to me.

I waved a hand in front of me. "Oh, no, I –"

"It's juice, ya knucklehead."

"Oh. Thank you." I politely took the cup from him. "So how did you know to come here already? Hancock just announced the party right before you arrived in Goodneighbor."

"Did you forget that I'm a detective and Piper is a reporter?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, that's a pretty impressive demonstration of your skills considering…"

Piper smirked. "The truth, though? Deacon told us. He has a sixth sense when it comes to parties."

Nick added, "He caught wind somehow of you and Hancock having a baby and Fahrenheit taking over Goodneighbor, and he just showed up in Diamond City in the Railroad's vertibird to get us. Congratulations, by the way." He raised his glass and we all touched them together in toast.

Piper shook her head. "Never thought I'd see the day Mayor Hancock was going to be a dad. And happy about it, too."

"Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of that here, tonight. I'm getting the impression that he has a whole other side to him that no one has seen but me."

Nick chuckled. "I'd buy that for a dollar."

I scanned the bar to keep an eye on Shaun. He was sitting on a couch, surrounded by some attractive young women doting over him and his pet.

Piper followed my eyes to see what I was observing. "Are you sure Hancock isn't his real dad?"

One of the girls stood up with him and they started to dance together. The German shepherd made wide circles around them.

"I may have to have Nick look into that for me."

"Yeah, sure," he said with a chuckle. "Just make sure Ellie has your forwarding address on record so I can get my findings to you."

The kinds of prewar references that Nick made were rare among other people, and they always perked me up with pleasant nostalgia. "You're a good guy, Nick. You, too, Piper. Thanks for all the help you've ever given me. Back when I first got out of the vault, I never would have survived out here if it wasn't for you two, much less found Shaun."

"Don't mention it, Blue."

I forcefully swallowed a lump in my throat. "I wish we had spent more time together."

Nick smirked. "Don't go getting all gushy on us, Felina."

I smiled. "I won't."

MacCready and Deacon chose that moment to join us.

"Well, Wanderer," Deacon addressed me, "Looks like you'll be living up to your code name a lot more than I initially thought."

"For a while, at least."

The band transitioned into a new song, and we turned our attention to the stage.

 

" _Took a walk_

_Out in the fens_

_Had a talk with a man about some chems_

_He asked me what's your flavor_

_I said I need a favor_

_I'm a little short on caps but_

_I'm a good good neighbor…_ "

 

MacCready turned back to face me. "Hey, so I just heard something interesting at this very party," he began. "Apparently, you and I had a fling last year that I don't remember."

"Yeah, I heard that one, too. I don't remember it either."

"Who told _you_?"

"Hancock. That's why he came back when he did."

"Really?! He and I must be better friends than I thought if he didn't kill me…" He looked over his shoulder at the ghoul as he took a sip from his drink. He and Fahrenheit were surrounded, laughing and talking boisterously with obvious intoxication. MacCready turned back to me. "Well, then I guess I owe you an apology."

"For what?"

He looked up at from behind the top of his pint as he brought the glass up to his face for another sip. "For not making the experience more memorable."

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself," I said with a laugh. "I must have been shit, too, if you don't remember, either."

"True. Oh, well." He held up his glass. "To new beginnings."

After the lot of us drank to his statement, he started backing away. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go say a few words to Hancock now." He headed over to the bar.

I checked on Shaun again. Now he was sitting at a table playing cards with some random people. The dog was up on his hind legs, front paws on his chair, looking over the boy's shoulder at his hand like he was part of the game. _Dios mio._ I wanted to examine the situation more closely, but I was struck with an urgent necessity to pee. I started heading towards the stairs. "Sorry, guys. Nature calls."

Deacon answered me, "Hey, when you gotta go…"

"Nick, will you keep an eye on Shaun for me while I'm gone?"

"No problem."

After taking care of things, I came back down the stairs and ran into Lynn and Danse.

"Hey, there you are!" She said with a bright smile. "Congratulations!"

Danse cleared his throat. "Yeah, congratulations."

"Thanks, guys." I looked past them to see Nick and Preston hovering near my son and relaxed a little. "I'm glad you could make it. This whole thing was sort of last minute."

"We came as soon as we heard." Lynn reached out to hug me. "I wouldn't want to miss my chance to say something to you before you go."

I felt the tears coming back.

She pulled away from me. "Hey, what's the matter?"

"Lynn, I'm sorry for all the times I was short with you. I didn't think we were all that good of friends before the war, but we turned out to be better friends than I thought."

"Oh, don't even talk about prewar times! That world sucked! I hated obligatory neighborhood barbecues with our fake neighbors, and the truth is I hated getting mani-pedis and waxes. All that stuff was so superficial!"

I wiped the tear from my face with a sniffle. "I'm so glad to hear you say that! I hated all that stuff, too."

"All the time, no one would let us do anything worthwhile because we were women, like our only job was to be _pretty_. Well, we sure showed them, didn't we?"

I smiled widely. "Yes, we did!"

Danse glanced behind him momentarily at Preston in his General uniform being showered with attention by the same neighborhood girls that were flirting with my son earlier. "So I hear Preston is going to be leading the Minutemen, now."

"Yes. And he doesn't realize it yet, but it's what he was born to do. I can count on you two to give him the encouragement he needs to keep his head in it, can't I?"

Lynn shined a sunny smile. "Of course! He'll do just fine." She took a wistful breath. "You know, I'm sad to see you go, but I'm glad we got to fight the good fight together for a while at least."

Danse chimed in, "I'd be lying if I didn't admit your skills are exceptional. That ghoul isn't so bad either."

"Thank you, Danse," I said with a snarky smile. "I know that was hard for you to say."

"You take care of Shaun, too. He's got a rough road ahead of him being a synth."

"Don't worry. I will." I looked past them once more, but didn't see Shaun at the card table anymore. My eyes scanned the room and I caught a glimpse of him sitting on the bar between Hancock and MacCready, the dog lying below their feet with his head down. "I'm going to go check on him right now, if you don't mind. And my husband. I haven't got to see them since we got down here."

"Of course," Danse replied.

Lynn added, "When are you leaving, by the way?"

"Sometime in the next couple days."

"I have some BoS stuff to discuss with you before you leave, but I'll save it for tomorrow and come by Sanctuary. I wouldn't want to talk business at your party."

"Sure thing, Lynn."

Once I was close enough to the bar, Shaun enthusiastically held up a small pouch for me to see and shook it, his feet dangling over the side of the bar, kicking at the wood with his heels. "Look, mom!"

"What is that?"

He opened the bag and showed me its contents. "This is all the caps I won playing cards!"

"Jesus, Shaun!"

Hancock put him in a playful headlock. "That's my boy!" He released Shaun and turned to me, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me close with a quick jerk. My heart fluttered a little. "And how are you doing, my love? You having fun?"

"Surprisingly so for being sober in a crowd of drunks." He smelled strongly of alcohol, but I didn't mind. "I can tell you are."

Shaun's smile faded a little. "Do we have to go, mom? I don't see why we don't just live here in Goodneighbor. This place is the best!"

"Hijo, even if we were staying in the Commonwealth, I couldn't in good conscious let you live in Goodneighbor."

Hancock let go of me and mockingly brought his hand over his heart. "I'm highly offended by that, love! I've lived here for years and I turned out alright!"

"You didn't grow up here for one…"

"And two?"

"Forget that, look how much he's been corrupted in one night! Flirting, gambling –"

"And winning!" Shaun added, rocking back and forth on the bar in time with the music.

"Wait a damn minute." I leaned closer to him and inhaled. "Do I smell _beer_ on you?!"

"It wasn't even a whole one! Dad let me have a sip of his earlier."

"John!"

Hancock leaned close to him to whisper, but didn't realize he was still being loud enough for me to hear. "I thought we agreed if she said something you were going to say it spilled on you." He looked back at me and smiled innocently. "It was just a sip, love."

"He's twelve!"

"I had my first beer when I was ten. It's not a big deal."

"John…"

Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, Magnolia was standing there holding a guitar out to me. "Come on, hon. It's time for you to take the stage."

I felt a chill shake through me, and I completely forgot about the beer. "I don't think so."

"What's the worst that can happen?"

"I choke."

"It's a bar. Everyone here is drunk, so who cares? Even if you do, you'll never have to see any of us ever again."

Hancock grinned. "Yeah! Play us a song, love!"

"You first," I retorted. "There's a piano right there."

Magnolia looked at him, perplexed. "You play piano?"

"Don't listen to her, Mags. She's just trying to distract you."

Shaun gave me bright eyes. "I like it when you sing and play, mom." His dog barked in agreeance. "You have a beautiful voice."

"Buttering me up isn't going to get you out of trouble, hijo."

Just then I realized everyone was watching the scene unfold.

Lynn cupped her hands to her mouth. "Play a song, Felina!"

A chorus of similar phrases started to pipe up among the bar patrons. _Fuck._

"Here." Magnolia pushed the guitar into my arms. "Your fans are waiting."

I strapped on the guitar and walked up to the stage like I was marching death row. I fought a deathclaw one-on-one, once. I'd been the leader of the Minutemen when they were on the brink of extinction. I even shook down Elder Maxson one time, right onboard the Prydwen. None of that scared me as bad as performing live music for a crowd of people.

Standing behind the microphone, I found the spotlights to be blinding and hot, but at least it made it hard to see everyone watching me. It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. I lightly tapped the mic, and the amplified pounding sound that resulted felt exactly like my heart beating out of my chest. My mind went blank. "I can't think of anything." I jumped a little at the sound of my voice being so loud in the nearly silent room.

Hancock offered his two cents. "Play _El Paso_! I still want to hear it!"

"Hell, no!"

"Why not?"

"You know why!" Then it hit me. I pulled the capo off the guitar's head and clamped it down on the neck. "I got it." I started strumming the chords and after a moment, the band instantly recognized the song and began to accompany me _._ My voice started out soft and wavering, and my strumming was clumsy…

 

_"We'll meet again_

_Don't know where_

_Don't know when_

_But I know we'll meet again some sunny day"_

 

A little ways in, I had found my stride.

 

_"Keep smiling through_

_Just like you always do_

_'Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away"_

 

I saw Hancock come into my view as he was hypnotically drawn in closer to the stage. He had a lazy, adoring smile on his face. It put me at ease, and I began playing and singing my heart out.

 

_"So will you please say hello_

_To the folks that I know_

_Tell them I won't be long_

_They'll be happy to know_

_That as you saw me go_

_I was singing this song…"_

 

People in the bar began to sing along until I was engulfed in the overwhelmingly sentimental chorus of voices…

 

_"We'll meet again_

_Don't know where_

_Don't know when_

_But I know we'll meet again some sunny day"_

 

While everyone continued the song without me, I unstrapped the guitar and came to the edge of the stage. I was locked in a seductive stare down with Hancock. After a moment, he held a hand out to me and I took it in a leap down. He pulled me over into a dip and kissed me.

 

_"Keep smiling through_

_Just like you always do_

_'Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away"_

 

Hancock brought us back up into a slow dance as Magnolia returned to the microphone, her golden voice ringing out, holding the entire singing bar together.

 

_"So will you please say hello_

_To the folks that I know_

_Tell them I won't be long_

_They'll be happy to know_

_That as you saw me go_

_I was singing this song"_

 

I looked around me at all the happy, friendly faces belting the tune. Still waltzing, Hancock and I started singing along as well.

 

_"We'll meet again_

_Don't know where_

_Don't know when_

_But I know we'll meet again some sunny day"_

 

In that moment, I finally felt like everything was going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was definitely more of a self-service than for the readers, but I needed closure. Please forgive me.
> 
> Only one more chapter til they leave...


	10. World At Large

The next day was off to a good start for me. I didn't wake up to nausea. In fact, I slept later than usual, and Hancock had already made breakfast.

He started picking our plates up from the table.

I stood up and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I'll get it, querido. You've done plenty." I put my hands on the stack he had gathered.

"If you insist," he said, letting go of the plates, "but let the record show I was willing to do the dishes."

"Dually noted." I headed with them to the sink. "Shaun, I need you to figure out what's going with you and take the rest of your salvaged parts to Sturges. We're leaving tomorrow."

He looked like he wanted to protest, but thought better of it. He went to his room without saying a word.

When I heard his door shut, I looked to Hancock, surprised. "No sass?"

"Well, you never punished him for the beer, so he's probably hoping you forgot about it."

"I did." I was merely half-assed washing the dishes directly under the running water. They weren't coming with us. "But I don't intend to hassle him about it now. I'm making things rough enough for him as it is with the move and the baby. The beer is a freebie… for _him_."

Hancock sat at the bar and lit a cigarette. "What do you mean by that, exactly?"

"Well," I said introspectively as I quickly scrubbed the skillet, "I blame you more than him for that, so if anyone should be punished, it should be you."

"And just how are you going to punish me?"

"Well, how does one usually punish bad boys?"

He looked up to one side in thought, smoke seeping out of the hole in his face. "Spanking?"

I put the dishes in the rack and dried my hands. "Nah, you'd probably enjoy that."

"Doesn't cooking breakfast earn me any good boy points?" He tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and rested his hand there, the cherry hovering over the ceramic edge.

I walked to the bar, leaning across from him. "You didn't do the dishes though." My eyes were drawn down to the delicious, smoldering stick between his fingers. I took a deliberate, but subtle breathe, relishing the tiny bit of second-hand smoke.

"Hey! I tried to!"

"You could have tried harder," I teased him.

"Oh, you're done!" He stood up from the stool, getting right in my face playfully. " _I'll_ finish them from here."

"Too late, amor," I said with my arms out. "I already finished." I put my hands back on the bar and smirked.

He leaned to the side briefly, looking past me at the sink with narrow eyes. "So you did."

While he was distracted, I took a deep inhale over his hand as quietly as I could.

He moved back to position and then closed the gap between us, kissing me over the bar. He started to part his lips and I quickly pulled away.

"Oh, shit. Sorry." He stood up straight. "Instinct."

"No matter. I've decided you don't need to be punished, either."

"How very gracious of you, your majesty," he replied, looking down at the cigarette he was holding. Suddenly, realization sparked in his eyes and he trailed them back up to my face. He had caught on to me. He frowned as he snuffed his cigarette out. "You ain't without sin either, ya know."

I sighed. "I know. That's why no one is to be punished. Shit's challenging enough for all of us, right now."

He half-smiled. "It's only temporary, love. The future has a lot of good in store for us. We just gotta wait it out."

I smiled back. "Of course."

He came to my side of the bar and put his arms around my waist. "Can you handle things here, today, without me?"

"But we have to pack, today, querido."

"It won't take me anytime to do that. I plan on traveling as light as possible."

"But we're leaving tomorrow. This is our last day…"

"I know. That's why I have a couple more things I need to take care of in Goodneighbor."

I sighed. "Okay, fine. If you must."

"Oh, I must." He was already halfway out the door. "See you tonight, love."

I started going through my own things. When it got too daunting, I took a break to check on Shaun. The mess in his room was now organized into several piles. I asked him, "Which of these piles is the stuff you're taking?"

He was sitting in the middle of the floor digging through a box, the piles circled around him. Dogmeat was sitting butt-to-butt with him, looking down into the same box as though he were helping. "Those three," he said without looking up.

"Shaun, you have to be able to carry all of this stuff yourself…"

"I have to go through them again to make final decisions, but I got it narrowed down, okay?"

"There's going to be scrap everywhere, hijo. You don't need all this junk."

"I know. I've got it handled, mom. Just let me do my thing."

I sighed. "Okay."

I stepped back into the hallway and peered into my own room. Objectively speaking, he was probably being more productive than I was. I just couldn't focus. I really needed a damn cigarette.

I wandered into the kitchen and started shoveling food into myself. That's what happens when you quit smoking. And that's what happens when you're pregnant. Combine the two…

If I wasn't about to walk 3,000 miles, I think I might have been a little more worried.

I was leaning back on the counter with a mouthful of fresh mutfruit that I wasn't even particularly enjoying, when there was a knock at the door. That's when I remembered Lynn said she was coming by. I called to her through partially chewed pulp, "Come in!"

"Hey, Felina!" She came to the dining table and unshouldered her bag into one of the chairs. "So how are things coming along?"

I took a gulp of some brahmin milk directly from the bottle in the fridge. "Slow. I just can't get my head on straight, today."

"I can only imagine." She pulled some sealed manila envelopes out of her bag and sat at the table. "I'll try not to keep you long."

"Oh, don't worry about that." I closed the fridge and joined her at the table. "I'm excited about going, but I'm not really in any hurry to leave you guys behind." I glanced over at the envelopes. "So what do you have for me?"

"These?" She turned the envelopes over, and I could see one was labeled "Capital Wasteland" and the other said "West Coast." "These aren't really for you, per se… I was hoping you'd be willing to deliver these for me."

I picked up the one that said "West Coast" and examined it. "How far west exactly does this need to go?"

"You don't have to take that one all the way to its destination. I just need them both delivered to the BoS in the Capital Wasteland. They can take care of it from there."

"Brotherhood?"

"I did mention this is Brotherhood business earlier, right?"

"You did, but…" I trailed off in thought. "I didn't realize their influence reached all the way to the west coast."

"You have it backwards, actually. They originate from the west coast."

I was barely paying attention to her reply. Something else was on my mind. "So you want _me_ to take these to _Maxson_?"

"Yeees," she replied, carefully.

"Lynn…"

"But don't worry. He and the rest of his soldiers shouldn't give you any problems if you tell them specifically that 'Lynn is calling in her favor'."

"Shouldn't?"

" _Won't._ "

I turned the envelope in my hands. "How can you be so sure?"

"Don't worry about it. Just know that they owe me big time."

I held the envelope up beside my face. "What's in here, anyway?"

"A lot of boring, technical stuff, but it's important. Trust me."

I laid it back on the table and slid it forward. "I'm sorry. I don't think I can do that for you, Lynn."

Her expression changed to something unfamiliar on her that I couldn't read. "You're going somewhere in the Mojave Desert, right?"

"Las Vegas."

"There's Brotherhood there. There's Brotherhood along the way. There's Brotherhood everywhere, Felina. They're extremely well organized." She tapped the envelope between us firmly with one finger. "You don't want to deliver this to Maxson because you're scared of the reputation you've created for yourself with the BoS, but it's going to follow you regardless. It would be wise of you to face him in the beginning of your journey and clear the air, and dropping my name is going to afford you that opportunity. I don't mean to come off preachy or bitchy, but delivering this," she tapped it again, "isn't really doing me a favor. It's doing you one." She slid the envelopes back toward me once more.

I just stared at them in silence.

"You have to trust me on this," she added earnestly.

After a few moments of consideration, I placed my palm on top of the envelopes and took a deep breath. "Okay, Lynn. I trust you."

She leaned back and smiled. "Good. Thank you, Felina. That's a load off my mind. Just promise me you'll be on your best behavior when you get there. It's going to make all the difference later on."

"I'll try."

"Don't try. _Do_."

Lynn stuck around the rest of the morning and kept me focused on my sorting. I packed the things I wanted to take and she helped me lug everything else I own out to Trashcan Carla to unload it for some caps. Shaun eventually finished his packing, too, and asked to go spend the night at Billy's house, which I agreed to.

Lynn and I shot some pool in the tavern that afternoon with Preston – where I consequently enjoyed every delectable bit of stray cigarette smoke that wafted in my direction. The two of them played and laughed together like old friends. It gave me personal satisfaction to observe them interacting so naturally, knowing they would have to work closely together in my absence to lead the Commonwealth.

Later on, Lynn decided it was time for her to go. "I'm sorry I won't be able to see you off tomorrow," she told me, "but at least I got to spend some time with you, today."

I gave her a hug. "Thanks for everything, Lynn."

"And thank you. Take care of yourself out there, Felina."

Preston and I continued to kill time in the tavern until dusk when we heard the Minutemen's vertibird approaching.

"And there's Hancock. I'm going to get going, alright?"

"What time are you leaving in the morning?"

"Sometime early." I gave Preston a friendly smile. "Don't worry. I'm not going to leave without letting you know."

"I don't care how early it is, if I'm not awake yet, come get me up."

"I will."

I strolled out of the tavern and down the street to the fields where Hancock was landing. The vertibird was on the ground with the blades still spinning when the ghoul tumbled out.

"Are you drunk?" I asked, coming closer to help him up. When I reached down to him, I noticed fresh blood on his shirt. "Is that your blood?!"

He groaned as I helped him to his feet. Looking down at the red stain, he replied, "Some of it." He started limping toward the road.

"Hey!" I put my arm around him to help him. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Ah, nothing to worry about. I went and got into some shit with Fahrenheit and MacCready. One last hurrah, if you wanna call it that."

"You're a mess." I shook my head. "We're supposed to be going on a nationwide walkabout and you come home limping."

"Nothing a stimpak can't fix, love."

I started leading him to the house. "Come on, mi amor. Let's get you inside so I can patch you up and put you to bed."

He smiled wearily. "I think I'd like that."

* * *

"I'm going home." The phrase made me feel like some sort of extra-terrestrial leaving the Earth's atmosphere. It was strange and comforting at the same time.

While Hancock and Shaun were gathering their things and heading out the front door, I paused in our house's living room for my last glance around at the pre-war, nuclear family starter home. It felt a little bit like I was finally letting Nate completely go, this being the home we had built our family together in, but it was long past time for that anyhow. It wasn't a sad feeling. It was more like I was finally allowing his spirit to be free, as though it had been hanging on in limbo as long as I was still there. I had moved on. It was time he did the same.

I grabbed the BoS envelopes and the atlas from the dining table, shoving them in my messenger bag. Without looking back again, I started out the door, closing it reverently behind me.

The settlers were already beginning to gather at the edge of town by the bridge. I looked back and forth between Hancock and Shaun. "Ready?"

Shaun nodded somberly, and Hancock smiled. "Are you?"

"Yeah. Let's do this."

We marched down the street, closing in on the growing crowd waiting for us. Preston was standing at the very front, wearing the General's uniform and a sad smile.

Billy ran out to give Shaun a hug. My son had a serious, almost mean look on his face, trying to hold back tears. Billy knew better, only holding him tighter. Marcy and Jun came by his side as well, patiently waiting for a chance to say goodbye to their surrogate son.

I sat my things down so I could appropriately address every settler that was approaching us individually with caps and supplies as going-away gifts. Sturges gave us a hand-written journal containing notes on building various things. When I pulled out of my hug with the stout handyman, Preston came forward.

"General," he said with a nod.

"General," I replied with a sly smile.

Hancock held the vertibird keys out to him. As he reached for them, the ghoul grabbed hold of his hand and put an arm around the dark-skinned Minuteman's back, pulling him close and saying something quietly by his ear for only them to share.

Preston came out of their embrace with shimmery eyes. "Don't let anything happen to her, Hancock. I'm counting on you."

"Ain't no one alive she'd be safer with, Preston."

When I saw the sadness in the Minuteman's face, I started to get teary as well.

He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace. "Thank you for everything, Felina."

I was having trouble finding my voice, on the brink of sobbing. "This isn't goodbye," I said, choked up. "I hate goodbyes."

He let go of me. "I'll see you around, then," he said, widening his smile.

I returned the grin through tears. "Hasta luego, Preston." I looked to Hancock, wiping at my eyelids with my fingertips. "It's time."

"Alright, love." He took my hand. "Let's get this freak show on the road."

As we started down the path, Dogmeat was at our heels.

"Sorry, pooch. Stay," I said to him with a pat.

"Can't he come with us, mom?" Shaun asked with big, pouty eyes.

Hancock smiled. "Yeah, let him come with us. Every boy needs a dog."

"Oh, alright. C'mon boy."

The dog panted happily and wagged his tail.

Whistling the melody to Big Iron, I strapped my bag and my guitar case to my back and took my first step forward to our new future.

So with dreams of deserts and cowboy ballads, we waved our last goodbye to all our friends in Sanctuary and our life in the Commonwealth as we disappeared over the bridge.


	11. October Sonata

SECOND TRIMESTER

* * *

 

The first few days didn't feel much different than any of the other times that Hancock and I had gone on foot across the Commonwealth, although it had been a while since we had. We also never had Shaun with us, before. After a while, I became grateful we had brought Dogmeat along. He diligently kept an eye on Shaun at all times, and it gave me a little comfort to know we had the extra paws ensuring his safety.

The first time we came across some raiders, I was initially frozen in panic watching my little boy draw his laser rifle. I knew this was inevitable, but mentally, I wasn't prepared for it – not even after watching him take down Brotherhood soldiers at the Castle. At least there, he had the walls to protect him, but in the wastes, he was out in the open.

With calm severity, he fired with deadly accuracy. Dogmeat actively assisted him as his right-hand killing partner. He proved right there that he could handle himself. I don't know what I was so scared of.

The next time my family was involved in a wasteland firefight, I was able to override a repeat of the same panic, but my subconscious found a new fear, reminding me that I was pregnant. I was manually able to conquer it as well. The very reason for that specific fear is exactly why I couldn't afford to divide my attention in a brawl. I was back on my game in no time, and it was smooth sailing from there.

We soon fell back into the comfortable pattern of travel Hancock and I had established long ago when we first started traveling together, walking for a solid ten hours or so until we came across a good place to camp, which usually involved taking out a few raiders and using their set up. It had an almost déjà vu-like feel of nostalgia to it, since we weren't having sex, either. Even if we could, I don't think we would have been able to fit it in with our schedule and Shaun being around. I tried not to think about it too much.

Shaun caught onto our routine with uncanny ease, he and Dogmeat noticing the signs of an enemy sometimes before Hancock or I did, and ducking into the shadows for a stealth assault. He was picking up on our silent communication language as well. The boy was still a little sour about having to leave friends and bulky projects behind, but it was obvious to me that he was enjoying our new lifestyle despite that.

Hancock was getting a kick out of it all, too. "I've never been this far from Boston before. Never had a reason to." He looked incredibly relaxed, his gait more of a casual stroll as his head panned his surroundings with sudden wonderment.

I smirked. "Did your chems just kick in or something, querido?"

"That ain't it. You know, I always knew it, but I never really understood just how big the world really is until now. And we're going to see more of it than most people do." He spread his arms out to his sides. "This is real livin'."

"This? This is nothing. We're barely out of the Commonwealth. I don't really know what to expect in terms of what kind of effect the war had on the rest of America, but it gets waaay different from this further down and west. You'll see."

"Heh. I'll be counting the days, love."

Shaun wasn't as amused at the moment as Hancock was. "Can we listen to the radio?"

"Hijo, Diamond City Radio has been out of range for days. I'm sorry."

"I know, but I'm sure that other people are broadcasting out here somewhere. "

He was starting to get cranky and worn down, a good indicator that we may need to break for the night, but there weren't any obvious good places to camp nearby. "Here, stop for a sec."

Shaun gave me an annoyed look. "Why, you gotta pee again?"

Everyone paused and turned their attention to me as I removed the pip-boy from my arm. "Here, Shaun. You're welcome to wear this for a while and look for a radio station."

He eagerly took the personal computer from me. "Thanks, mom!"

We resumed our pace again once he had it strapped to his arm.

I glanced over his shoulder. "Try to find some classical music, huh? I kinda miss that Institute radio station."

He was looking down at the pip-boy and messing with the tuner while he walked. "Hey, you'll get what ya get, mom. I have no say over what they're broadcasting out here."

We had been traveling every day for a couple weeks when we made it to the outskirts of the Capital Wasteland. We were making good time, so fitting in the detour for Lynn wasn't going to be a problem.

Shaun had been fiddling with the pip-boy since I handed it off and still hadn't found any music. He was wearing it with the tuner on, but had basically forgotten all about it when one morning I heard the faint sound of strings.

"Was that the radio, hijo?"

He brought his arm up to his face. "So it is."

Hancock started grinning. "Turn it up, then!"

"I can't. It's already all the way up."

"It will probably get louder as we get closer to D. C.," I remarked.

After a couple miles, the signal became clearer. "Music has always been an important part of my life," a gentle old woman's voice said on the air. "I hope you enjoy listening to these pieces as much as I enjoy playing them." A solitary violin played hauntingly beautiful music with no accompaniment.

"Thanks, hijo," I said. "This is exactly what I requested."

"Don't mention it," he replied with a smile.

We continued our journey while listening to the sweet strains of the old lady's music. After a while, she paused between songs with a vague request for assistance and coordinates on where to find her. Shaun flipped the pip-boy's screen to its map and input the coordinates. "It's not very far, mom. Can we go help her?"

Hancock looked over at me. "We should. We're ahead of schedule."

"Alright. Lead the way, Captain."

Shaun took to the front of our marching with a smile. "Follow me."

After a couple hours, we were closing in on the given location. Shaun led us across some railroad tracks, under a collapsed overpass, and over a small, wooden suspension bridge to a shack nestled inconspicuously into some rocks with a small radio tower outside. "This must be the place," he said, closing the pip-boy map. His demeanor suddenly changed as he became uncertain of himself, having no experience in this kind of adventuring. "Do we just… knock?"

"Go right ahead, hijo."

He took a deep breath and tapped his tiny fist on the rickety door.

"Who is it?" an elderly voice called form the other side.

Shaun looked back at me with round eyes.

I smiled at him and motioned forward. "Go on."

"Uh… My name is Shaun. I heard your broadcast on the radio and I'd like to help."

"Oh! Please, come on in."

Hancock and I already had our hands near our weapons when he turned to us and asked, "What if it's a trap?"

Hancock stepped up next to him with a hand on his shoulder. "That's why you stay on your toes at all times, killer." He put his hand on the doorknob. "Come on."

We came in on alert. Looking around, I saw it was a small, one-room shack with not a living soul in it other than the aged woman sitting in a chair across from us in the corner. She was a small, wrinkled prune of a thing with wispy white hair, dressed in patched rags and shaking subtly despite being steadily grounded in her chair. Hancock and I lowered our guard, and Shaun and Dogmeat relaxed.

"You certainly look worn out from your travels," she said to us, not getting up from her seat. "Oh just look at my terrible manners. I'm Agatha. It's so nice to meet you."

Shaun smiled at her. "It's nice to meet you, too. These are my parents, Felina and Hancock."

Dogmeat came up to her, sniffing and licking her face with a wag of his tail. "And who is this little fella?" she asked cheerfully as she pet the dog.

"That's my best friend, Dogmeat!"

"He's simply charming. Please, make yourselves at home. Would you like some tea?"

We all politely declined as we each took a seat. It just felt good to get off my feet for a while.

Shaun was attentively grinning at her. "So was that you playing the music on the radio?"

"Yes, it was."

"It was beautiful!"

"Thank you, young man." She waved to the guitar on my back. "I can see you come from a family that appreciates the arts."

I blushed a little. "You can say that. I definitely appreciate music, but I'm not nearly as talented as you."

"Well, I have a few years on you. Just keep practicing." She put her palms to her knees. "So you heard my broadcast and would like to help an old woman out, is that right?"

Shaun nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"That's very kind of you, but judging by the sleeping bags on your backs, you must be a long way from home. I feel I should warn you, I don't have much to offer in exchange for your assistance. If you're looking for caps, I don't want to waste your time."

Shaun looked back at us and Hancock gave him a nod. He gazed back into the old woman's kind face. "That's not really important to us. We'll help you anyway. What seems to be the problem?"

"Where to begin… My husband built this place all the way out here when we decided to cut off contact with the outside world and just depend on each other for comfort and company."

I thought about the days at the lighthouse and became wistful. "That's a beautiful sentiment, Agatha."

"Yes, after he built this place, we spent many happy years out here together, rest his soul."

Shaun looked pensive. "So he's… gone? I'm sorry for your loss."

"That's nice of you to say, thank you. In his absence, the only way for me to get the things I need is by trading with a caravan that comes through here regularly. All my trading depends on my violin, which is just a dreadful homemade thing I have to tinker with constantly. As of late, it has become irreparable, leaving me in a bit of trouble. Without it I have nothing to play… no way to make music… No way to trade…"

"Then how were you playing music on the radio?" Shaun asked.

"It's a recording dear. I keep it going all the time, otherwise when could these old bones get their beauty rest?"

"So," Shaun interjected. "You need another violin?"

"That's right, and I happen to know where perhaps the last real violin from before the war exists. It all starts with my great great grandmother Hilda back in 2077 before the bombs fell. Hilda sent a lot of letters to my great grandmother Mary who passed them on and so forth. Hilda was quite a special woman, classically trained and exceptionally talented with the violin. Her pride and joy was her Stradivarius violin… I can only imagine how exquisite this instrument must have been... When the war reared its head, she was invited by Vault-Tec to Vault 92."

My stomach turned a little when she said that.

"They claimed the vault would be dedicated to preserving musical talent. Vault-Tec was always promoting the vaults being used for the preservation of the arts and all that nonsense. Hilda couldn't pass up the chance, so she accepted. Then the bombs fell, the vault was sealed, and no one ever heard from Hilda again."

"I'm not really surprised by that," I remarked. "You could say I have a little bit of experience with the vaults."

She smiled weakly, but didn't comment on my statement. "Hilda's Stradivarius was named the Soil Stradivarius. She kept it in a special case that maintained the exact temperature and humidity it needed. If the case has been doing its job, it should still be in excellent condition…The Soil Stradivarius," she echoed once more in a dreamy way. "I'm not really in any condition to go after it myself," she continued. "That's where you come in. That's what I want you to get."

"From Vault 92?" I asked, a little worried.

"Precisely."

Shaun's eyes lit up. "We'll do it! We'll get your violin for you, Agatha!"

"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that! I don't think I've been this happy in years! I've asked others before, but no one has ever been willing. Of course, it didn't help that I didn't know where the vault was back then, but I've since found out its location. Do you have a map? I can mark it for you."

Shaun held the pip-boy out to her. "Right here."

"I don't know how to use one of those things, dear."

I pulled the atlas out of my bag. "That's okay. Here."

She circled the place where the vault should be on the page. "If there's anything else I can offer you… Would you like to rest up here before you go?"

I examined the marking she had made and did some quick calculations in my head. "I think we'll just head on out right now, but we may take you up on that later."

She smiled. "I can hardly wait."

* * *

It was a little further than I realized, but we pushed on. The scenery along the way didn't offer much in terms of anything interesting to look at or any good cover. We spent a lot of time out in the open. "A whole lot of nothing out here," I remarked quietly with a hint of anxiety. "Stay sharp, guys."

Shaun was buzzing with anticipation. "I can't believe I'm going to a real vault!"

I winced. "You've been in a vault before. They're nothing to be excited about."

"Yeah, but I don't remember that one." He looked down at my computer on his arm. "Plus, maybe I'll find my very own pip-boy!"

I saw it way off in the distance long before I heard it, which was a huge relief considering the last time I encountered a deathclaw. I quickly got down and everyone else did the same. I glanced around me to read their faces. It was obvious to me they saw it, too. Hancock's brow was drawn down in fierce seriousness, and Shaun? I've never seen his eyes wider.

Slinking in a line like a row of ducks, I led us to some metal railing nearby. They both drew their weapons as I pulled the silencer out of my bag and screwed it to the barrel of Esteban. With my arms over the rail, I carefully trailed its unsuspecting head and unloaded a couple rounds. The beast staggered, flailing at its own face for a moment. It rapidly regained focus and started charging toward us.

I felt Shaun's body trembling against mine as he shakily joined Hancock and me in firing at the thing. Dogmeat took off toward the deathclaw in a head on assault. Shaun stood up and reached his hand out. "Dogmeat, no!"

The deathclaw was getting closer to us with terrifying speed.

"Keep firing, Shaun!"

Dogmeat dove at its heels, clamping down on its razor-sharp clawed limb. The attack didn't do much damage, but it slowed it down enough for me to line up a better shot. I sent a bullet into its eyeball and it started shaking its head frantically and roaring. Forgetting about Dogmeat, it started barreling toward us once more.

Hancock hopped the railing, coat tails aflutter, and met him directly, sending a barrage of shotgun pellets first into its face and then into its gut. The gravely wounded beast hit the ground with a thud, still kicking when Dogmeat jumped on top of him, tearing at its throat. After a couple more desperate, thunderous roars, the deathclaw sputtered and gurgled its final breath, going limp.

I started breathing again. We had handled that situation more than effectively. "Good job, guys." I rubbed the top of the German shepherd's head. "Especially you, boy."

Shaun was still visibly shaken. "I've never seen a real deathclaw before."

Hancock was scanning the horizon. "We're lucky that was the only one."

"At the moment, anyway," I added. "Let's just get to that damn vault, huh?"

We finally reached the entrance to Vault 92. I was surprised to find we didn't need the pip-boy to open the massively heavy door. It was already rolled to the side, rusted and banged up. The interior was equally ruined, looking much older and more dilapidated than the vault I hailed from.

We entered cautiously, encountering a trip wire or landmine here and there, along with the occasional bloatfly. Every time we passed a computer, Shaun would tool around on it while Hancock and I picked up any loot we could find laying around. There wasn't much to be had, but the handful of stimpaks we found were plenty valuable.

Shaun was looking particularly distraught as he tapped on the keyboard of one of the terminals. His expression became more and more serious the longer he sat there.

"What is it, hijo?"

Before he could answer me, Hancock elbowed me in the rib. "Bobby pin?"

"Uh, yeah. Hang on." I rifled through my bag until I found one and handed it off to him.

"Thanks, love." Hancock proceeded to pick at the lock of a hall door. After a few moments of twisting the bobby pin in the hole, it opened with a click. He pushed on the door and stepped inside the closet. "Jackpot." He started filling his pockets with the chems lining the shelves.

I approached my son who was still bent over the terminal. "You okay?"

His response was a little delayed. "Uh, yeah." He stood up from the computer, pocketing a couple holotapes. "Come on, the sound studio is this way."

We rounded a corner and were face-to-face with a mirelurk. "Ah, fuck!" I shrieked while still instinctively popping off a few rounds at its soft underbelly in sync with Hancock. The creature filled with lead in an instant and it dropped. Another started coming our way from further down the hall and my husband and I continued firing.

Shaun rushed past it and started furiously typing on the terminal behind it. He didn't stop until the air was filled with a sound so high-pitched, I almost couldn't hear it, but it still seemed to pierce my head violently. Hancock and I both covered our ears and the dog started howling as the mirelurk hit the floor with a screech, curling its crab-like legs inward.

"What the fuck?!" Hancock exclaimed.

"Noise flush," Shaun answered calmly, turning the sound off. "Mirelurks shouldn't be a problem anymore."

I shrugged with an impressed pout. "Okay, then."

We continued further inside, following the signs to the sound studio. We stepped over a couple skeletons into the eerily silent, noise-proof room.

"There it is!" Shaun called out as he rushed to a table with a small case laying on it. He carefully popped the latches on the side and lifted the lid, peering at the instrument inside. It was perfectly preserved, almost glowing from the light reflecting off its impeccably polished body. He shut the case and grabbed it off the table. "Let's get out of here."

Hancock looked at him curiously. "I thought you wanted to find yourself a pip-boy?"

"Forget this place!" he barked with severity. "Let's just go."

We began walking back, and it started getting dark. Shaun reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the holotapes he had picked up, inserting it into the pip-boy and pressing play.

" _So far the experiment is going exactly as planned. We're subjecting the residents to extremely low frequency white noise at regular intervals through the loud speaker system. Using the soundproof recording studios and the musicians was an inspired idea. Kudos to the Vault-Tec selection committee on their shrewdness…_ "

He faced the ground as he walked. He played tape after tape as we listened to the recordings become progressively darker.

"… _In essence, I feel as though they are psychologically devolving. I was stupid for rushing these experiments. Now over 35 people are dead…The overseer! He had been implanting the suggestions into the residents…murderous suggestions he claimed came from Vault-Tec itself…_ "

He shut the tape off and yanked it out of the deck, tossing it to the ground. "Why did they do that?! What possible benefit was there to killing those people? It just isn't fair!"

I put my hand on his shoulder. "You're right, hijo. It isn't."

We walked on in silence.

* * *

Shaun perked back up when we arrived at Agatha's house.

The old woman called to us as we entered. "Goodness gracious! Back so soon? Please tell me you have good news."

Shaun held up the violin case and started toward her. For the first time since we met her, she rose up unsteadily out of her chair. "Oh my goodness! I must see it, please!"

My son opened the case in front of her, lifting the lid for her to see. Her eyes lit up with a youthful excitement as she hesitantly reached for the pristine instrument. "It's even more beautiful than I ever imagined!"

Shaun was smiling compassionately. "Will you play something for us?"

"Of course, my dear!"

She brought the violin between her shoulder and face and raised the bow, making a couple test sounds. "It's already in tune," she remarked with distant astonishment. She began to play, and the lilting notes of her song hung in the air like twinkling stars, shining with the same ethereal beauty as the sky, worlds more alluring than the recordings we heard on the radio. Her fluid motions were as graceful as the song she was playing, full of more life and enthusiasm than seemingly possible for someone of her apparent age. I don't know if she was breathing life into the music or if it was breathing life into her, but it was an amazing show either way. When she brought the song to an end, we were all frozen with enchantment.

She looked at Shaun out of the corner of her crow-footed eye. "Do you know what that was, son?"

He smiled proudly. "Bach."

"That's right!" She ruffled his hair. "What a refined young man you are!"

She offered us her home for the night and we graciously accepted the invitation. She continued to play for us, and later on in the evening, she started teaching Shaun about the instrument.

They were both sitting on her bed as she explained the violin's mechanics to him. After a while, he tried his hand at it and it was like a cat being gutted, but the woman kept a patient smile on her face. "It takes a lot of time and dedication to master, but you're young yet. You could still play like me some day."

"Really?"

"I know it."

"How?"

"Well, it's true what they say about practice – it takes lots of it. But the really important element to success is love. You have to have a love for the instrument and a love for music." She noodled a few jaunty notes. "If you have that, practicing isn't a chore, because you will desire to play." She followed that statement with a haunting melody of long, vibrato notes. "You'll live and breathe the music, and in time, everything else just falls into place."

Hancock and I had been relaxing on the floor. He was scouring the atlas while I kicked back and enjoyed just being able to rest. An exhausted yawn escaped from me, so Hancock put the atlas up and started laying our sleeping bags out on the floor.

Her eyes followed his actions. "If you're going to sleep, I could stop."

"Oh, no, abuela," I said gently. "I'd like it very much if you kept playing."

She resumed her concert while Shaun sat across from her, watching with mesmerized intensity.

Hancock and I laid down beside each other on our sleeping bags. I fell asleep to the angelic music with my husband holding my hand. The music followed me pleasantly into my dreams.

I don't know exactly when the music stopped, but it was completely silent in the one-room shack when I woke up the next morning. I sat up and checked on Shaun. He was still sitting beside Agatha, who was lying in her bed, eyes closed. He looked over at me, his eyes filled with tears.

"What's the matter, hijo?"

He stood up and put the blanket over Agatha's face and then, came and crawled into my lap, burying his head in my chest. I looked over at the old lady as my sleepy brain put it all together. "Oh, no…" I mumbled. I put my arm around my son and he started sobbing silently.

I reached around Shaun to nudge Hancock awake. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around. "What's going on?" he asked in a quiet stupor. I nodded in Agatha's direction. He looked over at her and back at me with concern, catching on instantly.

Before we left that morning, we buried the poor, old lady by her beloved husband, adding her name to the grave marker.

After we had lowered her into the ground, Shaun looked up at me somberly. "What about the Soil Stradivarius?"

Hancock drew his brow down in thought. "I guess we could bury it with her."

I shook my head. "Then no one could enjoy it. You should take it, Shaun. I think she would like it if you learned to play it."

"I don't even know how."

"You'll learn. Come on, hijo." I put my hand on his back and led him to the house while Hancock shoveled dirt into the ground.

He reverently picked up the instrument and carried it with him out the door.


	12. Running Up That Hill

It was afternoon by the time we squared everything away at Agatha's house. Once we had crossed the bridge out front, Hancock took my hand and started leading me the opposite way I intended to go. "What are you doing, querido?"

"I need to take care of something," he said with urgency. "It's a little bit out of the way, but we're still ahead of schedule and…it needs to be done."

I looked at him incredulously. "Okay. Whatever you say."

After walking for a few minutes, he asked for the atlas. Confirming he was still going the right way, he handed the book back to me. A few hours later when dusk began to cloak the sky, a lightly fortified settlement only accessible by a short wooden bridge came into view up ahead. "Almost there," he said with restrained excitement.

A couple of young guards in riot helmets stopped us at the bridge for questioning.

Hancock answered them simply, "I need to see Red." They looked over at Shaun and me and let us through.

The roads were littered with debris, and most of the shacks were poorly patched pre-war homes. Candles and lanterns illuminated the houses' windows, indicating that the settlement had no electricity.

As we approached a building with a crudely painted medical symbol on it, Hancock started rifling through his pocket. He pulled out a small crimson canister unlike any chem I had ever seen. He clutched it in his palm as he pushed the shack door open.

A dark-skinned woman wearing glasses and a scarlet bandana over her hair stood to greet us. "Can I help you?"

Hancock's eyes were just slits, he was grinning so hard. "Red?"

She looked suspicious and curious. "Yes, that's me."

"I have something…" He held his hand out and slowly opened his palm, revealing the chem. "For Duncan."

The woman's eyes opened widely as she stared down at what he was holding. "Is that…"

"The cure."

She took the canister from his hand and exhaled the breath she had been holding since we entered. "This is… You're an angel!"

One side of his mouth curled upward. "Don't get carried away, sister. We just met."

She hastily turned and headed toward a room in the back. "You can come with me if you want," she informed us without stopping.

Hancock led us to the back room where Red was administered the drug to a boy laying in a bed. He had to have been younger than Shaun, and my heart ached for the child who looked limp and lifeless as a ragdoll, covered in blue boils.

The woman finished up her work and tucked the boy back in with a kiss to the forehead. She exited the room, leaving us standing there. Hancock approached the boy and set a little toy soldier on the nightstand next to him before coming back to the doorway.

Shaun slowly crossed the room and somberly took a seat beside the bed. Dogmeat settled in by his feet.

"Hey," he said gently to the sick child.

The little boy turned to face him.

"I'm Shaun. You want some company?"

He smiled weakly. "Okay."

I was still trying to piece together what was going on when Hancock put an arm around my waist and turned me back to the door. "C'mon love."

Back in the main room, Red had joyful tears brimming in her eyelids. "Who _are_ you?"

"John Hancock, a friend of MacCready's. This is my wife Felina and our son Shaun is back there with Duncan."

"He actually has a fighting chance now. How did you…?" She just trailed off, overwhelmed.

"MacCready and I retrieved it from a Med-Tek facility in the Commonwealth a couple weeks ago."

"Is MacCready…" A tear rushed down her cheek and she wiped it away. "Is he going to come back for his son?"

"I ain't exactly sure what his plans are, but if – no, _when_ – Duncan recovers, I would assume he is."'

She smiled warmly. "I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Hancock, but please let me know if there is anything I can do to repay you."

He waved a hand back and forth in front of him. "No thanks necessary. Just helping out a good friend."

"I'm sorry I'm such a mess right now. This was just so… unexpected." She pushed her glasses up her forehead and momentarily rubbed her eyes. "So you're from the Commonwealth. That's a hell of a long journey back."

"Actually, we're not going back that way. We have a different destination."

She looked around her surroundings as if she had just discovered them. "I've got the room here if you'd like to spend the night before heading back out."

Hancock looked over at me for my input.

I glanced behind me back at the room my son was sitting in. He was showing Duncan the Soil Stradivarius. "Yeah, we could hang out for a while," I told them both. "I think it would do us some good."

"Stay as long as you'd like. Mi casa, su casa," Red said with a smile.

"Now you're speaking my language," I told her with a smirk.

She set Shaun up in Duncan's room and gave us our own identical room with two twin beds in it.

"Let me know if you need anything. I'll be in the next room over. Goodnight." She shut the door behind her.

* * *

First thing Hancock and I did was push the beds together. I sat down on the edge and started taking off my boots. "I didn't know MacCready had a son."

"And a wife," Hancock added as he started removing his outermost layers.

I pointed a thumb next door to Red's room. "Is that her?"

"No, love." He sat down beside me and slid his boots off. "His wife died."

In light of all this new information, I had a completely different perspective on the mercenary. "I had no idea," I remarked distantly.

"Yeah, well, Mac's a pretty private person. He doesn't talk about it much."

I continued to strip down to my tank top and underwear. It had been a while since I had worn them with any regularity. But, well, given the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy…

I was still thinking about MacCready as I slid down on the mattress. There was so much about him I didn't know. "Is…Duncan…going to be okay?"

He put his arms around me and pulled me down on the bed. "I'm sure of it."

"Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Hancock?" I asked with a hint of sarcasm.

He positioned himself over me and I put my arms around his back. "You know it, love." His genuine faith in that statement was reflected in the spark of sincerity in his eyes, strong enough to convince me of it, too. "And I have an honorary degree in pharmaceuticals," he added playfully.

"The Med-Tek facility, huh? So is that the 'shit' you got into with MacCready and Fahrenheit?"

He smiled. "Ya got me."

I smiled back. "You're awful pleased with yourself right now, aren't you?"

"A little bit."

I ran my palms up his back, bringing them to a stop at his head. "I'd say you have every right to be, mi amor. You're a good friend to MacCready and a hero to that little boy." I pulled his head down to my face and rewarded his white knight heroism with a tight-lipped kiss. I felt a warm shiver travel through his body.

He pulled back and glanced around our candlelit quarters. "It's been a while since we had a room to ourselves. It would be a shame to waste it."

"That it would," I replied, downtrodden. "But there isn't much we could do, anyhow."

"That depends on how you look at it, love." He rolled back on his knees and put his hands on my hips, sliding his fingers up to the hem of my shirt and pushing the edges up my stomach. I leaned up so he could pull the garment over my head. When I laid back down on the pillow, he began softly stroking my full, tender breasts. "These…" he said. "Do you know why I am so entranced by them right now?"

"Because of how big they're getting."

He shook his head and leaned forward, resting his face between them. "No, it's because of _why_ they're getting so big." He brought his face and hands down lower, placing an innocent kiss in the center of my belly. "I know we made this happen together," he said, caressing my tummy, "but you carrying our child, it feels more like a symbol of your affection for me."

I started feeling light-headed and giddy. "I suppose it is," I said with a grin.

"And I wish I could return the gesture," he remarked lamentably as he brought his face lower still. He sat up on his knees again, running his palms across my thighs. "How are you feeling right now, love?"

"Fine, why?"

"You up for something a little different?"

"What did you have in mind?"

Without another word, he reached for one of the candles on the nightstand and held it over my breasts, tipping it slightly.

The warm wax drizzled onto me and I arched at the sensation, "Oh shit," I whimpered.

"That was a good 'oh, shit,' right?"

I nodded.

"That's what I thought." He let a trail of the melting wax drip in the valley of my bosom, and I squirmed with pleasure. The heat made my skin tingle and I felt my blood rush through me, bringing traces of the pleasure to my extremities. He brought the candle over my legs and spilled the balmy liquid over my thighs.

I instinctively drew my knees closer, wrapping my legs around him. "Ooh, John…"

He got lost in his work, outwardly turned on by every shudder and recoil I made as the dull fire-like substance touched down on me. After leaving semi-firm puddles of the stuff all over my naked flesh, he set the candle back on the nightstand and reached on the floor beside him into his boot, producing his knife. He looked at it closely while he ran his thumb along the blade's edge. Shimmers of candlelight danced across the metal, and I felt my pulse race as I watched the meat of his thumb skim the sharp side all the way to the top.

He returned to my breasts, carefully touching the tip of the blade to my chest. Wearing a smug expression, he traced the steel around the perimeter of my fleshy mound, bringing it to the edge of one of the cooled wax pools. He slid the point under the edge and slowly peeled it away from me. I felt a tiny rush as the cool air touched my freshly uncovered skin. His raven-dark eyes glazed over with focused enchantment as he continued to graze the sharp edge across me at varying angles as though he was sculpting and chiseling me into existence for his own personal use and felicity.

He eventually cleared my entire chest of all the pliable wax, tossing the pieces aside. I took a drawn out breath as he lightly dragged the knife down my side to my legs. He went to work at the hardened wax down there, and I squirmed as the steel grazed my inner thighs. Little involuntary moans slipped past my lips.

"Shhh," he bid me. "These walls ain't that thick," he said, nodding towards the side of the house where everyone else was sleeping. With all of the wax gone, he rested the blade at the edge of my panties. "You gonna be able to keep it down, love?"

I nodded seriously.

He acknowledged my nod with a mischievous smile and hooked the blade under the cotton rim of my underwear, slowly pulling across. My last remaining article of clothing tore, the split spreading as he moved the blade through the threads. He dropped the knife to the floor and it hit the wooden planks with a muffled thump. He let his hand drift up my body, delicately tracing the faint welts from the knife's journey downstairs and stopping his fingertips at my lips. I pressed a kiss on them, slowly bringing my mouth down around them, wetting the length of his first two fingers. He drew a breath and watched intently by the flickering candlelight as I dragged my lips back up.

With our eyes locked, he brought his fingers down to my entrance and carefully penetrated my pulsating core. My whole body tensed at the friction from my head to my toes, gradually relaxing as my center grabbed at the welcomed invasion. He glided them back out and dragged them up to my swollen clit, making a tight circle. He spread his fingers and gently pressed the sensitive peak between them before bringing them back to my slick opening. He slowly pumped in and out, my ecstasy burgeoning. The feeling coupled with the sight of him looking down on me with such desire in the wavering, golden glow was pushing me to the end faster than I wanted to go.

As I struggled to slow down and stifle my desperate moans, he watched with contentment, his digits automatically doing their implicit witchcraft. "You gonna come for me, love?" He asked in his deep, whispery gravel.

A tiny yelp squeaked through my lips. He put his free hand over my mouth and I nodded my reply.

He uncovered my mouth and went for the closure of his pants, the fabric directly below straining around the struggling mass it contained. He freed himself and began stroking. His eyes rolled back and an alleviated growl rumbled out of him.

He plunged at me with a more momentous tempo, and I started seeing spots. "Oh, god," I breathed as my world went blurry. "Oh, John…" I managed to whisper before the out of breath feeling hit and I had to pull for air. The tingling vibrated through me, and I vigorously shook my legs a few times before drawing them closer to me.

He withdrew his fingers and brought them to his lips, tasting the juices he had drawn out with them. He was still clinging to himself with his other hand while he quietly spouted my name. He only indulged in the sight of me writhing in delirious bliss for a moment before his breathy words turned to hushed nonsense. He distanced himself from me as he quickened his thrusts around his twitching member and brought his own arousal to completion, the sight of his ecstatic convulsions lengthening the waves I was still feeling from my own climax. He collapsed beside me, his chest rising and falling exaggeratedly as he rode out his lingering tremors.

He turned to lay on his side and I repositioned to face him, both of us smiling drunkenly at each other. He reached for me and started caressing the contour of my side with his rough palm all the way up to my neck, brushing the curves there with his fingertips. "That's the best orgasm I've had since turning back into a ghoul."

"Same here," I answered with my brow raised.

He brought his palm down to my tummy. "April can't get here fast enough," he said, almost too quiet to be heard.

I scooted closer to him, resting my head in his chest.

I pulled the blanket over us while he blew the candles on the nightstand out and put his arm over me with a sigh. "Goodnight, love."

"Goodnight, mi amor."

* * *

My son giggling in another part of the house woke me the next morning. I opened my eyes to see Hancock gazing at me lovingly under lazy eyelids. He didn't say anything. He just smiled serenely. I smiled back, touching my hand to the side of his face gently.

I heard the child's laughter roar up again accompanied by a second child. Remembering where I was and realizing I was completely naked in a stranger's house where other people were already awake, I rolled to the side of the bed and started getting my clothes on.

Hancock groaned quietly, speaking a defeated, "Up and at 'em."

Once I was dressed, I exited our borrowed room and wandered to the doorway of the children's bedroom. Shaun was sitting in a chair beside Duncan's bed, and Dogmeat was on the bed with Duncan, his head in his lap. The sick boy looked much livelier than the night before and was even sitting up. Their laughter tapered off and they both turned to face me with residual smiles still adorning their faces.

"'Morning, mom," Shaun greeted me warmly.

"Good morning, hijo. So what's so amusing?"

"Nothing." He shared a look with Duncan. "You wouldn't get it anyway."

"Alright, alright." I raised my hands up. "I'll leave you two alone."

As I was turning away from the boys' room, Hancock was coming out of ours. He was still grumbling to himself as he grabbed a couple mentats from his tin. After dry swallowing and putting the tin away, he looked around him. "Where's Red?"

"Right here," she said, emerging from the house's kitchen with a tray of food. "The rest of the food is on the table in there." She motioned behind her with her head as she continued to Duncan with his breakfast. "Help yourselves."

Hancock and I made our way to the dining table and surveyed the available food. It was scant portions, so we were careful not to take much. Sitting down to eat, I noticed a radio on the counter was softly playing _Crazy He Calls Me_.

"You hear that, querido? I guess they have another radio station around here besides Agatha's."

"Well, sure. The Capital Wasteland is at least as heavily populated as the Commonwealth, and even we had Travis."

The song ended and D. C.'s dj began to speak. "Hellooooo Capital Wasteland! This is Three Dog, Aooo! Coming to you loud and proud from Galaxy News Radio. News time, children. According to reports from the ever so hoity toity Tenpenny Tower, that group of displaced ghouls are still trying to gain entrance. Ah, but lush-at-large Allistair Tenpenny says, 'No zombies, no how!...'"

"Zombies?!" Hancock remarked with the tiniest bit of offense. "I haven't heard _that_ one in a while."

"…Come on, Al, cut the ghoulies a break. If they've got the caps and you've got the space, it's a win-win, right? Whadaya say? And now... some music."

I turned my attention back to Hancock with a frown. "You're right. Some things never change no matter where you go."

Red joined us in the kitchen, grabbing herself some breakfast. "I'm still just in shock," she remarked as she sat down. "I think deep down, I had resigned myself to having to watch him…" She shook her head. "I'm just so happy he's doing better already. I feel so hopeful!"

"Other than that," Hancock started, setting down his utensils. "How are things around here? You have enough caps and supplies?"

"Well, sure. We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we get by."

After we ate, I insisted on doing the dishes while Hancock took Red aside and offered her some caps. I listened in passing as she repeatedly declined in the other room, feeling she was already indebted to us.

"No, if anything, MacCready is indebted to you for taking care of his son. Consider it funding for Duncan."

"I couldn't possibly, Mr. Hancock."

"Just 'Hancock'."

"I'm afraid I can't take anything from you. It just doesn't feel right."

He went back and forth with her for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then, there was a long silence followed by my husband's frustrated reply of, "Fine."

Later, back in our room, we were straightening up after ourselves, putting the furniture back and getting our things together, when something struck me out of nowhere. "Why didn't MacCready come with us? To the Capital Wasteland, I mean."

"I dunno, love."

I mulled it over in my head for a minute. "He's not coming back for Duncan, is he?"

Hancock didn't answer. He just strolled over to the dresser and started digging through his pockets.

"What are you doing?"

"Red thinks she's stubborn, but she doesn't know John Hancock." He held a sack of caps upside-down over the dresser and dumped its contents on the surface. He threw some stimpaks on top for good measure. "I can't stand the thought of that kid getting better but still wanting for things after we're gone."

Once we had all of our belongings, I walked to Duncan's doorway and called for my son.

He leaned over the bed and gave Duncan a hug. "Get well soon, okay?"

He smiled. "Okay. It was nice to meet you, Shaun. Maybe I'll see you again one day."

Shaun smiled back. "Maybe."

Red walked my family to the door. "Thank you again, Hancock. If you or your family is ever in the area and need a place to stay, hit me up. You're always welcome here."

Hancock gave the girl a hug. "Thanks, Red. Take good care of that kid."

"You know I will."

"I mean it," he said pointedly as we walked out the door.


	13. Under Pressure

I started heading east toward the remains of the Pentagon. It was here that Lynn told me I would be able to find Maxson.

"Um, Felina?" Hancock was slowing his steps. "I'm no master navigator or anything, but this seems to be a counterproductive direction."

I patted my bag and continued on my path. "I have to make a stop for Lynn. Didn't I tell you about it?"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

I explained the situation to him, and I could tell he was holding back some anger. "I wish you had discussed this with me beforehand," he said through gritted teeth.

I glanced over at Shaun, but he was staring straight ahead thoughtfully, silent and completely ignoring our conversation. I was relieved he wasn't paying attention to the almost-argument. "I'm sorry, querido. There was a lot going on, and I guess it slipped my mind."

"That's a hell of thing to overlook, Felina."

I reached for his hand. He didn't exactly deny me access, but there was an intentional coldness in his grip.

I had the coordinates targeted in the pip-boy, but I didn't want to disturb Shaun, so I instead referred to the atlas. As we got closer to our destination, I discovered that maps were not necessary to find our way. The Prydwen became visible on the distant horizon, and Hancock finally returned the firmness with which I was holding his hand.

As we got even closer, we would pass the occasional Brotherhood of Steel soldier. Closer still, the concentration of them started to thicken, and we started receiving some off-color comments. Hancock let go of my hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"I just want to get this over with. We'll have less trouble if I don't make our relationship so obvious."

"Oh fuck that!" I said, grabbing his hand again. "I'm not scared of these pricks!"

A knight several feet over tuned his head our way. Hancock grimaced and jerked out of my grip. "She doesn't mean you, _sir_."

His behavior was contradictory to what I had observed when we were around the Brotherhood in the past. The first time I brought him on the Prydwen, I had to talk him down out of a fight with a mouthy paladin. The second time… the second time we left behind some of our bodily fluids in a supply closet. "What's gotten into you, John? You've never acted like this before."

"How many lives do you think I have left?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"They've killed me before, and they'd do it again if they had the chance, so why should I give them one?"

"But Lynn's favor –"

"A favor only runs so deep. I have limited blind faith to throw in on that. I'm hundreds of miles from reinforcements with everything in my life that matters to me right here in the open – my pregnant wife and our son. There's too much on the line in this particular moment for me to act like an abrasive ass just to be cute, Felina."

"Well do you want to hang back with Shaun? "

"And leave you unprotected? Absolutely not!"

He looked down at my belly. The bump was subtle, and not particularly noticeable to anyone who had not seen me before, but _I_ could tell. It finally felt real. I brought my face back up and met Hancock's gaze.

He looked around nervously. "This is reckless, Felina. You should have never agreed to this."

"John…"

The whole time while Hancock and I are were bickering like kids, Shaun had wandered over to the knight without me noticing. I wasn't aware he had left until he came back with the soldier. The knight cleared his throat with that filtered, hollow sound through the power armor helmet, and got our attention. "You need to see Elder Maxson?"

"Umm," I straightened my posture. "Yes."

"Your son here tells me that Lynn is calling in her favor."

I glanced over to Shaun with a raised eyebrow. "That's correct."

The soldier started walking past us. "Follow me. I'll take you to him."

Hancock and Shaun smirked at each other and fell into step behind the knight. I couldn't help feeling like I was out of the loop somehow.

As he escorted us into the Brotherhood base, I could feel everyone's eyes burning holes into us. He took us to a vertibird directly below the Prydwen. "Wait here a moment." He had a brief discussion with the pilot who said something into his radio receiver before ushering us and the dog into the cockpit. As the aircraft brought us up to the Prydwen's deck, I flashed Hancock a little smile. His only response was a stern look. I turned my gaze to Shaun. His excited eyes were locked onto the airship above us with anticipation.

The vertibird came to a landing, and we stepped off. I addressed the pilot, "Do we need an escort?"

"No ma'am. Elder Maxson has already been made aware of your presence. Just head on back."

I led the way up the stairs to the command deck, actively trying to look confident, although internally, with the lack of support I was getting from Hancock, I was feeling like shit. Once inside the ship, I got a little bit of my fire back when I saw the molding tape around the replacement glass where Fahrenheit and I had busted the window out a few months back.

Just like before, Maxson had his back to me as I approached the front of the aircraft. He was wearing a plain duster, and I relaxed even more. Without his battlecoat, he didn't seem as intimidating.

"You know you're supposed to take that stuff off after like three days," I told him.

He turned around, glaring at me fiercely. "What are you talking about?"

"That blue tape. You leave it on too long, it's gonna bake to your windshield. I would know. I used to have a huge problem with road rage back in the day. I got to be real chummy with the body shop mechanics."

"It must be nice to flit through life with so little cares," he remarked scornfully. "You know, I actually did read that proposed treaty you drafted."

"Yeah?"

"It was… dreadful. Just what kind of law expert _were_ you before the war?"

"Are you always this snarky with your guests or is it just me?"

"It's just you," he answered with his signature piercing stare.

"Do you really want to know?" I smirked. "Gambling law."

"What?" Both Maxson and Hancock exclaimed in unison.

"I started my degree in Las Vegas, but Nate dragged me all the way out here, and there just isn't much use for gambling law in Boston, so I dabbled in criminal justice..."

"I suppose you're better suited as a housewife." His eyes trailed down to my stomach. "I sincerely apologize for almost killing your ghoul. It's quite noble what he's doing."

I glared at him. "Why? What is he doing?"

"Taking you back after…" He motioned to my baby bump. "Whatever happened _there._ "

Hancock stepped forward. "It's mine, asshat!"

"Is that what she told you? You _do_ know that ghouls are – thankfully – _sterile_ , don't you?"

"Yes, I know that, you bigoted pile of brahmin dung!"

"I should have you all eliminated right now after all the insolence we've endured from your dysfunctional family, but once again, Lynn is endorsing you, foolishly wasting her last favor on whatever nonsense you've brought me."

I was literally biting my lip to keep from saying something I may regret.

"So enough banter. What do you want, Felina?"

"I don't want anything. I'm just another slave to Lynn's persuasion." I sighed as I pulled the envelopes out of my bag. "She wanted me to personally hand deliver these," I said, handing them over.

He took them with his eyes distrustfully fixed on me. "That's it?"

I shrugged. "That's it."

He looked back and forth between the envelopes and me for a moment before sitting down on a bench. "Have a seat."

"What? Why?"

"That can't be all. That would be utterly ridiculous. I want to see what's inside this thing," he said, tapping the Capital Wasteland envelope against his palm.

Reluctantly, I sat down on a bench across from him. Shaun sat next to me with Dogmeat by his feet while Hancock continued to stand rigidly.

His eyes scrolled back and forth as he looked over the papers in the manila folder. After sitting in uncomfortable silence with him for what seemed like forever, but was probably only ten or fifteen minutes, he looked up at me from over the top of the papers and then set them down next to him. "You know, Felina, I'm not the villain you make me out to be."

"Yeah, well, neither am I."

"Under different circumstances, I believe you and I could have been powerful allies, maybe even friends," he said in an unfamiliar lighthearted tone.

I had never seen this side of him. "Just what was in that folder?"

"It's irrelevant," he said, sliding the documents back inside and closing it. "You and I have many of the same goals, but the slight differences happened to be the big deal-breakers. I understand why you did all the things you did, I just don't agree with it. As personally offensive as some of your exploits against the Brotherhood of Steel have been, there's no way I could have let it slide."

"Understandable."

He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out over the Capital Wasteland. "Do you know what the East Coast Brotherhood was like before I took over?"

"Not really," I answered, uninterested.

"They were falling apart. They had no real guidance, no direction. They were neglected by the central leadership in the west and were divided amongst themselves here with an outcast faction operating independently. About ten years ago, we were still under the leadership of our founder, Elder Lyons, when we drove the Enclave out of here and took over Project Purity. I was just a kid back then, raised in his vision of the Brotherhood of Steel. Elder Lyons was popular with the people of the wasteland because he prioritized their wellbeing over the traditional Brotherhood values. The West Coast didn't approve of this and cut off support. During this time, he passed away and his daughter took over, but she died in battle shortly thereafter. Leadership unsuccessfully changed hands multiple times before I assumed the role."

He faced us once again. "I turned this organization around, reuniting the outcasts, building this ship, and reestablishing our contact with the west. I had to incorporate the traditional Brotherhood values to make that possible. I did it not just because I care about the Brotherhood, but because I care about the people of the wasteland just as Lyons did. They have to be protected from themselves –"

"That's where you're wrong, Maxson," I interrupted.

"No, that's where you're being contrary and obstinate just to spite me. On a very basic level, you agree with that concept, and for you to claim otherwise would be a lie. You are essentially attempting to protect the people from themselves with your Minutemen agenda. _This_ is where our opinions differ – not in that the people are doomed without our help, but in _how_ to help...

"I still carried over Lyons' values however I could. It's true that we are attempting to reclaim as much tech as possible from civilians, but we trade food and other resources instead of taking it by force the way our west coast brothers would. I even have humanitarian projects in effect on board this very ship such as research on more effective protection and treatment against radiation – something I'm sure you of all people could appreciate," he said as his eyes darted momentarily in Hancock's direction. "This isn't information that was kept from you. This was all free and available to you if you had taken the time to interact with my crew members when I requested you to, day one. But you… you took your 'free' power armor and ran. "

I glanced beside me at Hancock's flat expression and then back to Maxson. "Every crew member had to take a jab at Hancock as we walked the halls of the Prydwen. What was I supposed to think?"

"You were supposed to think for yourself. I'm not going to deny that we don't hold ghouls in very high regards, but I did _allow_ him to walk the halls. That was a deliberate demonstration of my open-mindedness, but you didn't take that gesture from this organization's leader into consideration before making a snap judgement about our entire operation."

"I'm sorry," I said, folding my arms, "but I find blatant displays of racism disgusting."

"Clearly, you have a somewhat open mind given the extent of your relationship with Goodneighbor's mayor here," he said, waving a flippant hand toward my husband. "But surely you can see it's not unreasonable to keep synths and ghouls at an arm's length when there are obvious issues like ferals and that fiasco with Diamond City's synth mayor."

Hancock and I exchanged a glance before I opened my mouth again. "Yeah, McDonough was programmed and planted by the Institute, though. With them out of the picture, don't you think synth fear-mongering is a bit irrational?"

"No, because now they are just ticking-time bombs like the ghouls."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He snorted quietly. "Where do you think ferals come from?"

"They were not fortunate enough to retain their consciousness when they turned." I took a remorseful breath. "And at that point, they are no longer sentient."

"You would call that 'fortunate'?" He shook his head. "Sentience is the very problem with synths," he said, subtly gliding his blue eyes in Shaun's direction. "If allowed to continue existing, they will eventually turn on us." His eyes moved on to Hancock. "Just like ghouls." He abruptly rested his gaze back on me. "Every ghoul eventually goes feral, Felina."

"Puta mentira," I replied calmly.

"Excuse me?"

"Bullshit."

"Did you really not know or are you just in denial?" He nodded to my husband. "He didn't tell you?"

I jerked my questioning face up at Hancock, but he just shrugged and matched my folded-arm posture, glaring at Maxson. "That's just speculation. Ain't any solid proof of that."

The corner of the Elder's pursed lip curled upward. "You will probably get to ride the clock out on it, though. That shouldn't happen until long after Felina's natural lifespan expires. Then again, if it's truly caused by brain deterioration, all that chem use might speed things along. I guess you'll just have to wait and see."

I rolled my eyes and stood up. "You were doing so well there for a minute, being civil. Have you finished having your fun, yet, Maxson? Can we go now?"

"You aren't prisoners. You can leave at your leisure, but I thought we were having a productive conversation."

"Productive?" I said with a scoff. "What's the goal here?"

"Peace. Between you and I." He extended his hand to me.

I leered at his hand skeptically. "Really?"

He withdrew his hand. "I know you're leaving the east coast. It's all in that envelope. I want you to know I'm going to do my best to work with Lynn's displaced Brotherhood and the Minutemen in the Commonwealth, and I'm even going to pass word of our truce west so you won't face unnecessary hostility when you get there."

"But… why?"

"I already told you. I'm no monster. First of all, I don't want another chapter of the Brotherhood operating independently again. It looks bad. Second, you already know how I feel about the rest of your family, but the child you're carrying is innocent and deserves a real chance. Ideally, though, I'd like some assurance that you aren't going to continue to harbor ill feelings towards my brothers and attempt to cause us any more problems."

"I, uh…" I was flabbergasted.

He held his hand out again. "If I can forgive you for keeping my coat, I think you can forgive me for almost murdering Hancock since he seems to be alive and well… and somehow procreating."

My eyes drew down toward my unborn child. All of this was completely unexpected and I couldn't process it quickly enough. I thought back to the first time I had met Maxson and tried to account how things got to this point.

With one hand on my stomach, I looked back at my misfit family. They were staring on in somber amazement as I returned his gesture of reconciliation with my free hand. "No more unprovoked attacks or disrespect if I can expect the same," I promised. "But self-defense is still fair game," I added.

"Naturally." He shook my hand firmly. "My men here won't bother you, but you should still watch out for the civilians out there." He looked past me at Hancock. "The public's disdain for ghouls in the Capital Wasteland is markedly greater than what you're probably used to."


	14. Heroes (Just For One Day)

As we walked away from the Citadel, it was uneasily quiet between all of us.

I was still mulling over my first encounter with the Brotherhood. At the time, the only thing I knew about them was the unfavorable description Hancock had given me, and then the ignorant soldiers on deck confirmed everything he had told me. I could have tried being as patient as Lynn and maybe prevented all the active conflict I had with them, but no matter what angle I approached it from in my head, I still saw things turning out the same way. I guess some things are unavoidable.

Hancock began pulling the chems out of his pocket and replacing them one at a time.

I glanced over at him incredulously as we continued forward. "What are you doing, querido?"

He flipped the lid of his mentat tin open and pushed the tablets around with his fingertip before snapping it shut and putting it away without removing any. "Taking inventory."

"Why? Are you missing something?"

"Not any chems, which is surprising. I'm having a difficult time swallowing what just happened back there and figured I must have taken more than I thought this morning. But no, it's all there."

"Yeah, I'm with you, and I'm completely sober, so it must be real. I wonder why the Brotherhood owes Lynn so badly."

"I imagine whatever it is would shatter my good girl image of her I have."

Shaun spoke for the first time since we entered the area. "You two are ridiculous. Why was that so hard to believe? Everyone always thinks they are the good guys. Even the Institute. They didn't think they were doing anything wrong. They thought they were helping. Everyone's version of helping is different and at least a little bit selfish, but people just don't always realize it. The right thing to do isn't always obvious."

Hancock and I exchanged a surprised glance.

He looked over at Shaun. "That's very insightful of ya, kiddo."

Shaun stared straight ahead with a serious tenseness in his furrowed brow. "Helping everyone with one solution is nearly impossible. Somethings have to be prioritized and somethings have to be sacrificed. Nobody knows what's best for everybody. Not even you guys."

His seriousness softened into curiosity as we neared a group of three people traveling the opposite way back towards the Citadel. He tugged lightly on my sleeve, never taking his eyes off them. "One of them has a pip-boy," he said to me softly, completely distracted from his previous thoughts.

I squinted off into the distance to focus on them better. The woman in front with the purple mohawk and raider armor was the one wearing the pip-boy. Beyond her were a very tall, armored ghoul with most of his original hair and a platinum blonde woman in a pre-war dress with a bulky mechanical collar around her neck.

Hancock subtly angled his head towards me and spoke to me discreetly. "Do you see that collar?"

I nodded.

"Do you know what it's for?"

I shook my head.

He took hold of my arm and brought me to a stop. "She's a slave. It explodes if she tries to escape."

"What?" I uttered in quiet shock.

He nodded solemnly. "We've got the caps, love. Let me try to smooth talk them out of her so we can set her free."

My jaw was still dropped. "Yeah. Of course."

We continued walking and were soon close enough to speak to them. Hancock made eye contact with the woman in front. "Hey. "

The woman stopped, and her followers immediately halted behind her. She said nothing, only seeming annoyed by the interruption with distant eyes that looked right through us.

Before Hancock could say another word, Shaun jumped in, "Where did you get the pip-boy?"

The woman drew her annoyed gaze down at our son, immediately zeroing in on the one he was still wearing. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him closer. "Where did _you_ get the pip-boy?"

I blacked out with anger for a brief moment, regaining my awareness with my gun point blank between her eyes. "Let. Go. Of. My. Son." In an instant, I had two guns pointed back at me from her companions. Dogmeat bared his teeth and started to growl.

The woman released his arm and laughed. With a wave of her hand, her followers lowered their weapons. She put her finger on the barrel of Esteban and pushed it away from her face. "Hey, sorry. Instinct. I'm sure you earned it, however you got it."

I pulled Shaun behind me and Hancock lowered his shotgun. He put on a poker face, but I could still sense the rage boiling underneath. "He's just a kid, ya know."

"Yeah, I said I was sorry. Did you want something?"

His face got tighter. "The girl. Is she for sale?"

"Who, Clover?" She jerked on a length of leather attached to the collar, pulling the girl closer in a stumble. "'Fraid not."

Hancock holstered his shotgun and pulled a sack of caps out his pocket in a deliberate way that made them jingle. "She's a slave, ain't she? That means she can be bought."

This time, both the woman and Clover laughed. "Clover ain't no _slave_! She _loves_ me! Ain't that right, sugar tits?"

Clover was grinning widely. "You know it, lover."

Shaun cautiously started to poke his head around from behind me, but I pushed him back into place, darting my wide eyes over to Hancock to confirm he was as taken aback as I was.

The woman directed her attention to me. "Do you always let your ghoul speak for you?"

I straightened my face out and motioned toward him, making up an explanation on the fly. "I let him handle all the finances. I'm bad with money."

She chuckled again. "You're gonna hafta get over that! That's how you get ripped off." She glanced behind her at her posse. "Tell ya what. You in need of a slave? I gotcha covered. How much you got?"

I folded my arms. "Well, even I know that's no way to negotiate."

Hancock tossed the bag in the palm of his hand. "We were thinking something in the neighborhood of 500 caps."

"Ha, no! You're gonna hafta do better than that."

Hancock looked over at me and I spoke up. "750."

"3000," she barked.

"3000?!" I looked back at Hancock

He took over for me, pulling another bag of caps out. "1000."

"2000."

He added another bag to his hand. "1500, take it or leave it."

She snatched the bags from him. "Deal." Sliding them into her own pocket, she produced a wrinkled piece of paper from the same place and handed it to me.

I looked down at the paper and skimmed over it, immediately recognizing it as a handwritten contract. "Charon?" I read aloud in confusion.

"That's right," the woman said, already walking past us, pulling Clover along. "He's all yours. Enjoy." Clover flapped her fingers at us in a little wave as they became more distant.

The ghoul just stood there, heavy and unmoving like a brick wall. He had to have been easily a foot taller than Hancock. My eyes trailed up his towering body. "You're the one we just bought?"

He gave me a thousand-yard stare. "Yeah, but I'm no slave." His voice was deep and gruff, matching his exterior perfectly.

I thumped the paper. "This kinda implies otherwise."

"If you are my new employer, then I will do as you command, but I belong to no one."

Shaun stepped out from behind me. "What about that girl?"

Charon looked down at the boy with the same intense expression. "Forget about her. She's doing exactly what suits her."

I was still scouring over the paper. "I wouldn't exactly call it employment if you're not getting paid…"

Hancock blinked slowly as though to erase his memory of what he just witnessed. "Let me see that," he said, taking the contract from me. His eyes darted across the page for a few moments. Getting the gist of it quickly enough, he pulled his flip lighter out. Holding the paper by one corner, he flicked the lighter underneath it, and the parchment pulled the flame up, spreading around the edges and becoming engulfed by the fire. He fanned the page a couple times before dropping it to the ground and grinding it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. "Fuck that. You're free now, Charon."

His eye twitched like he was actually about to emote, but I couldn't tell if it was going to be good or bad. "Why… did you do that?"

"So you can be free," Hancock replied matter-of-factly.

"No, that's impossible…"

Shaun knelt down and examined the smoldering ashes. He pulled a scrap of paper out that didn't burn and held it up to him. "This is all that's left of that receipt."

"Contract," I corrected him.

"Right. Contract."

The hardened ghoul very carefully accepted the scrap of paper, his fingers unconsciously running through his hair as he just stared at it in disbelief. "You… gave her all your caps."

Hancock plunged his hands in his coat and jingled his pockets. "Not all of them," he remarked as he rocked forward onto his toes and back again. When he pulled his hands out of his coat, he was holding his pack of cigarettes. He tapped the end, sending a couple protruding through the hole in the top, and then offered one to Charon. When he took it, Hancock raised the flame of his lighter up for him to light it, comically seeming like a child next to the freakishly tall ghoul.

Shaun craned his neck all the way up to see his face. "What are you gonna do now, mister?"

Charon took a drawn out drag from the cigarette, hardly exhaling any of the smoke. "I'm really free?"

Shaun nodded enthusiastically.

"Then I'm going to go catch up with that miserable bitch and give her what she deserves." He started heading off with steady determination in the direction they had disappeared in. Already several yards away he called back to me, "Hey, smoothskin! You may want to give Megaton a wide berth. It's nothing but a radioactive crater now."

Shaun pulled the pip-boy up to his face, closely inspecting the screen. "I'm not seeing Megaton on this map."

Hancock pointed off into the horizon ahead of us. "If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say it's that glowing area over those hills."

I took Shaun's hand and started walking south of it. "You think?"

Shaun looked over his shoulder and waved off toward the tall ghoul sprinting away from us. "Bye, Charon!"

Not long after, we heard a few gunshots echo off in the distance behind us followed by feminine screams of agony, and then? Quiet. We kept walking as though nothing had happened.


	15. Strange Fruit

D. C. had been hit pretty hard, and the maze of fallen down buildings was even worse than that of downtown Boston where I had gotten lost the first time I tried to find Goodneighbor. We followed whatever roads we could find south of the radioactive brightness that was apparently some place called Megaton before we got there, but even the roads were hardly intact. Even further south, the terrain was rocky and nearly unnavigable. I would have preferred to take the interstate, but the collapsed sections were much too frequent, and coming across them would set us back timewise, requiring us to back track, so we continued feeling out a path as best as we could.

Shaun started messing with the tuner on the pip-boy again and found Galaxy News Radio. Finding our way around the Capital Wasteland probably would have been easier if I had the pip-boy on, but I decided to let him wear it as long as we were still within range of the radio station since we learned earlier that it was rare to find one outside of metropolitan areas.

"Hey kiddies, this is Three Dog, your voice in the darkness. Or... at least, the radiation. Children, I'm afraid I've got some terrible, terrible news. GNR sources have confirmed that the mushroom cloud seen in the vicinity of Megaton was in fact... Megaton. It's been no secret that the pre-war nuke in the center of town had a live atomic core, and under the wrong conditions, could still go kaboom. Well, go kaboom it has. But it was all just a tragic accident, right? Don't you believe that for a second, folks. Word is that twisted old land grabber Allistair Tenpenny, founder of the posh Tenpenny Tower, has been looking to secure that spot for years. I suspect foul play, folks. But just who did the dirty deed? Ask yourself this: why was the girl from Vault 101 sighted hanging around Tenpenny Tower? Why indeed…"

"I sure have been hearing a lot about this Tenpenny Tower on the radio," I remarked idly.

As we closed in on a drive-in at the top of a hill, the peak of an unusually tall building started to come into view. Shaun looked up at me. "You think that's it?"

"It's the only tower I've seen," I answered. Just then, distant shots were fired in our direction and we all ducked down, rushing for cover among the abandoned car bodies behind the movie screen. "Is everyone okay?" I asked.

The boys nodded. Another shot pinged off a nearby car, and a follow up shot ripped through the outdoor movie screen, blowing Hancock's tricorn hat off his head. "What the fuck?!" he exclaimed, getting down on his stomach and reaching under the adjacent car to retrieve his headpiece.

Keeping an eye out for the sniper, I was barely paying attention to what Hancock was doing until his body suddenly snapped into fight mode, pulling his shotgun from its holster and aiming it underneath the car. Shaun and I drew our weapons as well, and a ghoulified hand reached out from where we were aiming, holding Hancock's hat out to him. "Here," the voice belonging to the hand called out. "I'm not feral!"

We lowered our weapons. Resentful of being startled, Hancock replaced his hat with a snarl. "Is that sniper shooting at you or us?"

"You and I, friend." He crawled out from under the car's body and sat on the ground against the door. "Not the smoothskins."

Hancock growled, giving me a look. "Better not be Brotherhood."

The new ghoul shook his head inside the motorcycle helmet he was wearing. "Not Brotherhood. Tenpenny." He flung an exasperated hand at the tower. "He spends all his time sitting on his balcony hunting ghouls for sport or whatever. I wouldn't even have left the safety of the tunnels if we weren't low on supplies down there."

"Where's the tunnel?" I asked.

He pointed west of the tower. "Otherside. I'm going to have to wait it out here until dark when he goes to bed. You'll probably want to do the same, so get comfortable."

We joined the ghoul sitting on the ground between the cars. Dogmeat whimpered and laid his head in Shaun's lap.

The new ghoul held his hand out to my husband. "Since we're going to be here for a while, we should go ahead and get acquainted. Name's Michael."

Hancock returned his handshake and introduction.

I held my hand out to Michael, but he just stared at it, confused.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"You really want to…?"

I grabbed his hand. "Yes, of course."

He laughed under his breath. "Well, obviously you're not from around here."

I smiled warmly as we shook. "I'm Felina, Hancock's wife."

Michael's eyes went wide, and he looked over at the other ghoul. "I need to watch out for you."

Hancock furrowed his brow. "What? Why?"

"Because you must have ungodly charisma to snag this one," he said, nodding his head toward me.

My husband just smiled slyly, peaking at me from the corner of his eye. "Something like that."

"We could have used a ghoul with that kind of skillset around here last year and maybe we wouldn't have lost Roy to this stupid feud with Tenpenny."

Shaun leaned forward with interest. "Why? What happened?"

"Roy, rest his soul, was trying to get us ghouls residence in Tenpenny Tower for over a decade. He had a plan that required gaining entrance through the basement, but we never found a way in. He started recruiting more ghouls into our settlement down in the metro tunnel in an attempt to amass our numbers and just take the tower by force from the front. I didn't think it was the most elegant idea, but it was the only way we could come up with. The attack didn't go well. Roy was at the front and was the first to fall. Morale dropped quickly and we pretty much just retreated back to the tunnels in defeat."

Shaun was enthralled. "Why do you want to live in that tower so badly?"

"Do you know anything about it? It used to be a resort before the war. It is by far the cleanest, safest, _swankiest_ place in all the Capital Wasteland!"

"With such large numbers, couldn't you just as easily build your own place just as good?" Shaun looked over at Hancock and me and then back to Michael. "That's what we did back home in Boston."

"We've definitely upgraded our bungalow over the years, but it's not the point, it's the principle of the thing. Our group of ghouls became really more of a political activist group intent on the integration of ghouls into that tower to send a message to the rest of the wasteland. It would be a huge step for all ghouls."

I interrupted. "Integration? So you're not trying anymore of that 'take the tower by force' stuff, right? You want to live among the human residents there?"

"More or less. The primary goal is just to get in. There was a point years ago where we could have tried reasoning with them at the front gate, but after the attack Roy led, we can't get near the place without bullets flying at us." He nodded at Hancock. "If you had been here back then, you probably could have sweet talked them, but it's too late for that now." His eyes slowly filled with realization. "But your wife could…"

I rubbed a hand across my face. "I don't know about that." I was still a little rattled after my talk with Maxson and Shaun's comments earlier.

Michael raised his brow. "No one would shoot at you. They wouldn't give a smoothskin any trouble."

Hancock looked over at me. "Couldn't hurt to try."

"Querido, I'm not nearly as charming as I'd like to be, and I can't take 'enhancers' anymore to help that."

"Don't be so modest. What you're lacking in charm you make up for in diplomacy and cleverness."

"Yeah," I said with a sarcastic snort. "Tell that to Maxson."

"Sheer tenacity then." He leaned his head on my shoulder. "Do it for the ghouls, love. If you ain't successful, they won't be any worse off than they already are."

Shaun folded his arms. "It's better than sitting in this boring place all day waiting for nighttime."

"And then we wouldn't have to travel after dark," Hancock added.

I sighed. "Alright. I'll give it a shot." I cautiously stood up, testing the waters. No shots were fired. I reached for Shaun's hand. "Come on."

He looked shocked. "Really? You're actually going to let me come with you?"

"Yep. I'm a single pregnant mom. Maybe I'll get a little extra sympathy."

* * *

Standing at the tower's wrought iron gates, I could see potted plants and intact patio furniture inside a well maintained courtyard just beyond the enclosure. I pushed the button on the intercom.

There was a long pause before someone answered. "Yes?"

"Can we come in?" I asked in my most innocent, feminine voice. "I'm pregnant, and I have my twelve year old son with me."

"Nope. Sorry."

I felt my forehead wrinkling in anger. I tried to gain control over my emotions and pushed the button again. "Please. I just need to rest for a while and it's dangerous out here."

"The answer is still no."

I was already getting frustrated. "Pretty please with sugar on top?" I said through clenched teeth.

"Unless the 'sugar on top' is, oh, about 100 caps, I'm afraid this gate is staying shut."

"I could swing that."

The intercom went silent again. A couple moments later, I heard the gate rattle as it swung open. "Welcome to Tenpenny Tower," came the voice from the intercom.

We stepped through the gate and the guard that was just speaking to us held his hand out. I handed him the caps, which he immediately pocketed. "I've got my eye on you, stranger. Don't try anything funny while you're here, understand?"

"Nothing funny, got it."

The interior of the tower was just as delightful as the inviting courtyard with a clean, polished look to its tall ceilings and sprawling staircases, accented by extravagant rugs and chandeliers. The people wandering the lobby were all decked out in pre-war duds and walked with an air of self-importance. I proceeded straight ahead to the front desk and spoke to the armed man sitting there. "I'd like to see Mr. Tenpenny, please."

"What for?"

"I'd like to speak to him about some accommodations."

He looked me up and down. "I don't know how you got in here, but I'm sorry, princess, I don't think you can afford this place."

I looked down at the men's suit I was wearing. "Hey! I'm not a drifter. I'm pregnant, okay? My usual clothes don't fit right."

"Where's the father?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but my husband was shot. Back in the Commonwealth." It wasn't a lie.

"The Commonwealth? You're awfully far from home."

"That's not our home. Not anymore."

He sighed. "Alright. I'll let you through. Mr. Tenpenny has the final say, anyhow. Head on back to the elevator behind me and go to the top floor."

"Thank you." I started past his desk.

"Oh, miss? One more thing."

"Yes?"

"You'll have a better shot if you update your attire." He pointed to a hall to the side. "Talk to Anthony Ling in New Urban Apparel. He'll hook you up… if you really do have the caps."

I followed his advice and visited the clothing shop first. "Mr. Ling?"

"That's me… Oh my lord, what happened to you? Did you get dressed in the dark?"

I suppressed a sigh. "What do you have in a size 'fat'?"

He put me in a crisp, sleeveless housedress with red embellishments and a straw bonnet with a bow to cover my careless hair. "Ooh, girl, pink really _is_ your color!"

I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror. The cut of the stretchy dress was roomy and flattering while still showing off my little baby bump… but I despised pink. "No, it's not. Blue is."

"I don't have anything blue in your size, hon."

"Whatever, this is fine." I paid him for the garment.

"What about your shoes?"

I was already halfway out the door. "The boots stay, period."

Shaun and I boarded the elevator. While we were waiting for it to reach the top floor, he looked up at me with a mischievous smile. "Looking good in pink, mom."

"Can the sarcasm."

"No, really –"

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. "Put on a game face, hijo."

After a brief talk with yet another guard, we were waved through to a room containing an indoor garden with double doors out to the balcony. Through the doors, there was a shady looking fellow in a light-colored pre-war suit and fedora in one chair watching the wasteland with a pair of binoculars, and on the other side was an older gentleman in a red hunting jacket pointing a rifle over the railing.

"Mr. Tenpenny?"

He popped off another round that echoed menacingly across the dismal horizon – to which his associate gave a polite golf clap – before standing the rifle on its grip and leaning on it to turn to me. "I am Allistair Tenpenny," he said cordially and proper. "And who might you be?"

I extended my hand. "I'm Felina and this is my son Shaun."

After shaking both our hands, he took a seat in an ornamental arm chair. "I saw you two approaching from the east," he said as he leaned his rifle against the wall next to him, keeping his hand on it. "There was a third…"

"Yeees," I replied carefully.

"And yet he is not here with you." A revolting smile stretched across his wrinkles. "Does that mean my shooting was proficient?"

I didn't plan on this. "Mr. Tenpenny, I don't wish to waste your time any more than my own. I wanted to speak to you about your tower's policy against ghouls."

"They are quite disgusting and my tenants do not wish to coexist with them. End of story."

"But what if I were to talk with your tenants and they _didn't_ have a problem with it?"

"Look, Felina, you seem like a nice enough girl, bright enough, halfway presentable for an outsider, and straight to the point. I can respect all of that. But this ghoul problem has been going on for more than a decade. If the tenants were able to be swayed, they would have been by now."

 _Time to channel my inner lawyer._ "I can see that you are a distinguished man with an appreciation for fine things – which cost money. And keeping this coveted community up to your impeccable standards can't be cheap. I can tell you firsthand that ghouls are not the monsters that people make them out to be. These ghouls have the caps, so why not let me try to convince the tower's residents? Worst case scenario, I fail to change their minds and you lose nothing. If I succeed, your pockets get fatter. It's a win-win for you."

"I see your point, madam. I really don't care if the ghouls live here as long as they are paying. And then it makes for good target practice if they misbehave." He twisted the sniper rifle back and forth in consideration. "I already know that there are people living here that would agree with you, but the highest paying tenants are the ones with most objections to it." He finally released the gun, allowing it to rest against the wall. "I'll tell you what. If you can convince them to support you, I will allow the ghouls residence here."

I breathed in relief. "Thank you, Mr. Tenpenny."

He glanced over at his gun once more. "So your friend… he got away?"

I smirked. "He did."

"Well, good for him."

His associate gave us a list of people who had to agree to the change, and Shaun and I set out to speak to them. The guy from the clothing store was on the list, so I decided to seek him out first.

"Mr. Ling?"

"Oh, you're back! Did you change your mind about the shoes?"

"Not exactly. I wanted to know how you feel about ghouls moving into Tenpenny Tower."

"You can't be serious! Ghouls aren't human. They live in filth. They eat their own babies…"

Shaun and I exchanged an eye-rolling glance.

"…You're out of your right freakin' mind."

"I've spent a lot of time around non-feral ghouls. They're civilized and pose no threat."

He curled his lip in disgust. "Why would you hang out with filthy vermin like that?! You enjoy sifting through feces?"

"I've done more than hang out with them, Anthony." I put a hand on my bulging belly and smirked. "I'm carrying a ghoul child right now." Sometimes I can't help myself.

He stared on, slack-jawed and speechless.

Shaun got excited by my egging him on. "She's married to a ghoul, you know. Mr. Tenpenny already said he can move in with us. This is happening, so deal with it!"

He visibly snapped as he absorbed our words. "Oh, you'll regret this! It's only a matter of time before they get hungry and eat you!" He turned his back to us and opened his safe, emptying its contents into a briefcase from under the counter. "You're crazy, you know that! Mr. Tenpenny, too. He must be senile." He kept stuffing various things into his briefcase as he moved around the store. "I won't stand for this! I'd rather take my chances out there." He struggled to snap the case closed and paused by the door, whining desperately. "Where the hell will I go?"

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," I said with a satisfied grin.

Shaun chimed in, "Good luck, bigot!"

He left in a huff.

I looked down at my son proudly. "So, who's next?"

Lydia Montenegro. Another shop keeper. She reacted pretty much the same way as Anthony, but I wasn't able to bully her into leaving the way he did. While I was persistently arguing with her, unwilling to give up, Shaun slipped behind the counter unnoticed and picked the lock on her safe. He returned to the front of the counter and placed all of her locked-up belongs on its surface.

She immediately forgot about our discussion and began bitching about the poor security as she hastily gathered her things up. "This place has been going downhill for years! I'm not wasting another minute of my life here among _zombie-lovers_ and _thieves_!"

Once she was out the door, I turned to Shaun. "Where did you learn how to do that?"

"Dad." Shaun pulled our list out and crossed Lydia's name off. "Two down."

We only had three people left to take care of – Edgar Wellington II, Millicent Wellington, and Susan Lancaster. Since they weren't manning the counter of some shop, we had to wander around and find them. Shaun and I made the rounds on several of the floors more than once with no luck. I sat down on a hallway bench, frustrated. "What time is it, hijo?"

"It's almost 2."

I sighed. "Want to split up and cover more ground?"

"Sure."

On my own, I eventually found the Wellingtons out in the courtyard enjoying a late lunch. I joined them at their table and tried to convince them that ghouls aren't so bad, but I was getting nowhere with them. They finished their meals and left me alone at the table. I just kept sitting there, frustrated and trying to catch little whiffs of the guards' cigarettes I was downwind from. After a while, Shaun came and sat with me.

"Any luck?" I asked him.

He was grinning widely as he handed me a sheet of paper:

_My Dearest Susan,_

_Last night was wonderful and I can hardly wait to see you again. I think about you all the time and see your face everywhere that I go. I can't live without you. My love for you is more real than anything I have ever felt. I only want to be with you and, when the time is right, I will "take care of things" with you-know-who so we can finally be together. Just wait for me a little a longer, my love. Soon, everything will be set right._

_Yours Truly and Forever,_

_EW_

"What is this?"

"I found that," he said, beaming. "In Edgar's desk."

I felt a weight lifting off of me. "Oh, you clever little scoundrel!"

We took the letter and marched up the stairs to the Wellington's room. I presented the letter to Millicent and she instantly recognized her husband's handwriting. I watched all reason leave her eyes and her face blank out as she pulled a pistol on Edgar, giving him two to the head before taking off down the hall to Susan's room. Wide-eyed, I looked over at my son who was just as alarmed as I was. We ran after her.

We heard the shots before we made it to where the confrontation had already occurred. We stopped short of Susan's lifeless body bleeding through the holes in her skull, just in time to see Millicent put the pistol in her own mouth and pull the trigger. We just stood there in shock as the crowd of people watching began to grow.

"Mom," Shaun spoke to me quietly. "I kinda thought we would just blackmail him with it."

"In hindsight…that may have been better." I started shooing him to the elevator. "Come on, hijo."

We reported back to Tenpenny who didn't seem at all surprised or upset by the mini-bloodbath that had occurred a few floors below him, even throwing us a few caps for our troubles. I didn't stick around long enough to question the old man's motives. We left to tell Hancock and Michael that the ghouls were finally given the all clear to move in.

* * *

"I can't believe it!" Michael exclaimed. "After all these years… You are by far the most amazing smoothskin I've met since the bombs fell!"

"Eh, it was more luck than anything," I assured him.

Hancock's gaze trailed up and down my body. "Pink?" He said with a smirk.

I pulled the bonnet off and shoved it in my bag. "It's just a costume."

"It's pretty, love."

Michael was ready to go talk to his people. "Please, come back with me to the metro tunnel so I can show you off to the others. Thanks will be in order."

We went with Michael back to Warrington Station where he led us through the fortified tunnels to the large ghoul settlement inside. Everyone was in a happy commotion over the news, laughing, cheering, thanking us as they packed their things and headed toward the exit.

"Come with us, smoothskin."

I waved a hand in my face. "We're not staying in the Capital Wasteland. We need to get back on the road."

"Don't be foolish. It's getting late. Come back to Tenpenny Tower and stay the night. You can head out in the morning."

We followed the ghoul caravan to the tower, and the group's excitement on the way over was palpable. As we came through the gate at the back of the crowd, I could hear the frightened gasps and exclamations of the human residents up ahead in the lobby. The protests became more panicked and I heard shots fire. I grabbed hold of Shaun and pulled him down. Hancock kicked a table over and dragged us to cover behind it as the gunfire ramped up.

"What the fuck is going on?!" I cried from our makeshift bunker.

Poking my head around the table's edge, I saw the unarmed, ambushed humans running frantically out the building's door and through the courtyard, being shot down by the intensely war-faced ghouls. The guard I had bribed at the gate opened fire behind me, but he was swiftly taken out by the nearly feral activists. His body hit the ground beside us with a thud, the pool of blood underneath him spreading outward.

One of the ghouls we had just met in the tunnel knelt near us, putting a hand on my shoulder. "No worries, friend. Your family is safe. It's these racist assholes that have to pay." He took back off into the fray with a thunderous battle cry of, "For Roy!"

I turned back to the boys and Shaun lowered his head, uttering a defeated, "Fuck."

I didn't chastise him for his language. "Fuck, indeed."

Hancock stood up from our cover and started shouting. "Fucking STOP!" His exclamation went either unheard or ignored amongst the carnage, but he kept yelling.

With the shots dying down, the ghouls held the last few humans in the courtyard at gunpoint and finally directed their attention to Hancock. One of the aggressors addressed him, "What is the problem, brother?"

"They agreed to let you move in! Why are you doing this?"

The ghoul extremist kicked the whimpering woman at his feet with a sinister grin. "Yeah, _now_ they have. That doesn't erase years of prejudice and hatred."

"It should! All you're doing is reinforcing their misguided stereotypes by attacking!"

"Yeah, well maybe stereotypes hold some truth."

Without wasting a second, Hancock charged toward him, drawing his shotgun and pulling the trigger, detaching the ghoul's torso from his legs. As the shots started ramping up again, this time directed at Hancock, he grabbed the woman by the arm and started dragging her to the gate. "Run!" He shouted to us as he and the girl flew by our table away from the tower.

Shaun, Dogmeat, and I ran after them. I only looked back once to see Tenpenny's body hanging limp by a noose from a balcony among some other humans, his bright red hunting jacket commanding attention, even from so far away. Their forms swayed ominously in the gusts, brushing across the lofty building's top floor. He wasn't a good man, but it was still a disturbing image to have burned into my head.


	16. Dunwich Lullaby

The five of us kept running until we were out of breath and the massive tower was just a miniature blip on the horizon behind us. Once I was certain we weren't being followed, I let myself fall to the ground on a downslope behind some boulders, tired and defeated, face-palming my sweaty cheeks. "What a fucking disaster!" I huffed with what little breath I had caught.

Hancock knelt in front of me, peering into my face with morose eyes. "Don't let it get to you, love. We meant well."

The woman fell beside me and started crying. "You fucking bastards!" she shrieked through a waterfall of tears. "What is wrong with you?!"

"I didn't know…"

"You should have!" she barked. "And fuck _you_!" She yelled, pounding her fists against Hancock's chest.

He scooted back out of her reach. "Hey! I just saved your life!"

"You should have let me die there! I have nowhere to go! Now…now I have to die out here!"

"It ain't gotta be like that," he said rifling through his bag. He started doling out some supplies to her, including spare armor and a gun. "Those ghouls don't accurately represent all of us."

"They may as well!"

I put my hand on hers. "You can stay with us as long as you want, okay? We'll keep you safe."

She didn't reply. She just kept sobbing and staring off into the middle distance.

I stood up. "Come on," I said, offering to help her up. "We need to find a place to camp before the sun goes down."

She just sat, unmoving, clutching the shoulder pads and pistol my husband had given her to her bosom.

Unwilling to stay out in the open like that, I forcefully pulled her up by her arms and manually led her until she was walking on her own. "What's your name?" I asked her.

She didn't reply, looking past me.

Our group continued on, the rocky hills funneling us due west to a lone, windowless office building that couldn't have been more than two- or three-stories tall. One look at the sun's position and I knew we wouldn't have time to find anywhere else. I started toward the entrance.

Hancock looked incredulous. "You want to stay here?"

"There aren't a whole lot of options, so, yeah."

He shrugged. "Alright."

At the door, he entered first, and we hung back some. While we were waiting, I noticed large groups of birds that looked like baby owls congregating on the eaves and overhangs of the building, almost completely camouflaged. I squinted for a better look. _Whippoorwills._ That was the first time I had seen any since I got out of the vault… But what was more interesting to me was that was the first time I had ever seen so many of them. They were a rare sight, even before the war. Once they noticed they had been spotted by me, their little owl-like heads perked up and their call began to swell up strangely in unison, getting louder as more of them joined in. Their chorus of chirping seemed to be in sync with the recurrent sobbing of our Tenpenny refugee.

I didn't have much time to ponder this phenomenon. Soon, Hancock was waving us in. I marched forward, and Shaun and Dogmeat automatically corralled the nearly catatonic woman in directly behind me.

The inside was relatively dark and musty. To our left, the florescent flashing of a Nuka Cola machine was illuminating the hall, and I could hear the random tapping-like sound of it flickering, unsuccessfully trying to stay lit. Beyond that, there was the hissing of an untuned radio emanating from the back of the building. Everything was mildly damp, giving the appearance of the walls breathing and being alive in the vacillant light, making me feel uneasy.

Hancock still had his shotgun drawn when we came in, and he inserted the barrel into the eye socket of a picked-clean skeleton on the floor, dragging it out of the path for us. Once it was against the wall, he tried to pull his gun out of the bones, but the skull separated from the spine, still attached to the end of his barrel. He idly kicked the skull off of his weapon, and it bounced to the ground with a dull clatter. We walked over the poor soul's old brown blood that had permanently stained the wood of the foyer, staying in our original formation as Hancock turned a corner.

He knelt lower and holstered his shotgun, making the "shhh" gesture and holding his palm out to me. I pulled my silenced pistol out and handed it to him. I could hear the flat flopping of footsteps on the ground and the low growl of feral ghouls ahead of us in the darkness as he carefully trailed the barrel across the room, expertly taking them down without them ever knowing we were there. Handing Esteban back to me, he motioned for us to wait there and pulled his knife, slinking off into the obscure blackness of the wide-open room.

I raised Esteban up, watching the shadows for his return. Shaun had his laser rifle pointed behind us, watching our rear. The nameless girl was still doing what she does – nothing.

Out of nowhere, Dogmeat let out a low, eerie howl. It wasn't loud, but it was haunting and unsettling like wind wailing through gaps between wood plank walls on a lonely night. My skin crawled, and I instinctively turned around to see what had him upset, but nothing out of the ordinary was apparent. That didn't deter my son or me from staring down the hall in stark stillness on lookout for whatever made the dog react like that.

While my back was still turned, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I damn near jumped out of my skin with a silent shriek that came out sounding like a gasp. "Fuck!" I hissed in a whisper, even after seeing it was only Hancock. "You scared the shit out of me!"

He smiled. "It's all clear, love. The upper floors, anyway. Come on." He waved us on into the gloom he had just emerged from, and we followed.

"What do you mean?" I asked as we treaded carefully through the desaturated calignosity and the wreckage. I was hung up on his remark about the upper rooms.

"Well, everything above ground is clear, but when I was poking around here by myself, I noticed from where the floor was caving in on the other side of the building that there's a basement. There's a few ferals scratching around there, but I barricaded the door, so they ain't gonna bother us."

I shot him a look that he most likely couldn't see in the dark. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm positive. There's a kitchen around the corner from here that's better lit. We should hold up in there for the night."

I was a little leery, but I trusted his judgement.

Once in the kitchen, I found the source of the white noise and immediately switched the radio off. The girl never spoke another word to us while we were setting up for the night, despite our occasional attempts of trying to coax her into a conversation. I offered her my sleeping bag, but she just sat beside it with her back against the wall, intermittently sobbing.

I laid down, sharing Hancock's sleeping bag with him while Shaun snuggled close to Dogmeat with the pip-boy radio on low, the GNR signal already getting weak and staticky:

"GNR. Three Dog. All you need to know. Seems we've got a bit of news. Just listen to this. Hey, remember those down-on-their-luck ghouls who wanted to share the luxury accommodations at the fancy shmancy Tenpenny Tower? Looks like they finally got their upscale address! And all it took was the wholesale slaughter of every other Tenpenny resident! Three Dog's all for stickin' it to the Man, but good golly ghoulies, that's a liiittle much." He went quiet for a moment, and all we could hear was the scuffle of him moving some stuff around in the studio. "Back to the music. Here's one that doesn't get much radio play. It's Billie Holiday with... _Strange Fruit_."

I cringed. "Shaun, turn that off."

"Yes, mom."

The day's events were enough on their own to put me ill at ease, but they honestly weren't even on my mind as I laid there. Sleep was eluding me for a different reason. We had spent the night in many an abandoned building, and not just on this journey, but this particular building was giving me a fretful feeling I couldn't shake. I was already snuggled up close to Hancock in the same sleeping bag as him, but I didn't feel close enough. I pulled both his arms around behind my back, urging him to hold me tighter, and he did. Pressing my face into his chest, I started to relax, and slumber began to take hold of me.

…

Deep into the night, my conscious mind had not quite caught up with me. I heard a voice whispering unfamiliar, nonsense words. "Fhtagn… fhtagn… H'bthnk … h'ehye-n'grkdl'lh…"

I was dreaming of the feeling of being caressed by Hancock and caressing back, my body grinding into his and my legs bounding him as they bent and rode further up to his hips.

"Fhtagn… fhtagn…"

Warm rushes swept over me, each insurgence bringing me closer to ravenous. My eyes were fluttering opening, but I could see nothing in the dark. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. My mind was still teetering between awake and asleep, still not completely convinced I had left my dream.

Our hands were indeed wandering over each other. My mouth instinctively drew to the exposed flesh of his neck, sucking and licking at it, and the soft moan he let out jarred my brain into the moment. I could feel his hand move down between us, sliding into the front of his pants and beginning to rub at the aroused muscle confined there as he quietly moaned to himself once more. I could sense the lustful feeling he had elicited from me dilating my pupils as his face became more visible to me in the darkness, my eyes fully open now. His eyes were still closed and his breathe still easy with lingering slumber.

I don't know which one of us started this, or how when we had both been asleep, but I was altogether invested at that point. "John," I whispered, careful not to wake the others.

His busy hand paused. "Hmm?"

I didn't say anything else, giving him the chance to assess the situation for himself.

He slowly removed his hand from his pants and pressed a taut kiss against my forehead. "Oh. Sorry, love," he breathed out softly.

"No…" I drew my hand down to his abandoned bulge and cupped at the tightness.

His hips bucked in surprise, and he pushed himself into me harder. "Felina," he sighed out, almost inaudibly.

I brought my lips up to his ear and barely spoke. "We should go to the other side of the building for a little bit."

"Mmm," he growled quietly. "Okay…"

I was still in a delirious dreamlike trance as we stealthily grabbed our weapons and snuck out of the kitchen without disturbing anyone. A little down the hall, he grabbed me by the back of my neck and pushed me up against a wall with his body, sweeping light, restrained kisses over me. He growled unslaked groans and tried to keep hold of me as I slid my back against the wall and further down the hall, leading him away from the kitchen. At the corner opening up to the crossing hall, I escaped his embrace and scampered backwards with a giggle while he playfully pursued me.

My skirt flared out with my skittering, and he caught a handful of fabric, pulling me through a doorway and spinning me against a wall again. "Gotcha!"

I juked to the other side of him and pulled him across the room by the waist of his pants, stopping when the back of my legs reached a desk. I tittered again before burying my face in the crook of his neck, nibbling lightly at the sensitive skin under his jawline. I trailed my kisses down the nape of his neck, stopping at the top his chest between where my palms had rested. "Fuck, John." I gripped the front of his shirt by the fistful. I felt like I could burst at the slightest touch. "I want you."

He smirked as his hand glided down to the hem of my skirt. I moved one leg up his, giving way to easier passage. He palmed my thigh, riding my skirt up my sides, and slithered his hand between my legs, rubbing up and down on the warm space that was yearning for him. "Mmm, already wet," he remarked, still dreamlike himself.

My back arched, and I started easing onto the desk. "Yes," I whispered. I let my hands fall to his hips, grabbing them and pulling him closer to me as my raised leg encircled his back. He wiggled his fingers into my folds, and all reason slipped from me as I squirmed and readjusted, trying to guide him to the best spot. When he found it, I felt the world rumble like a small earthquake.

Completely caught up in the moment, I realized too late that the one foot I still had on the ground was sinking through the floor. I gasped as the rotting, crumbling wood gave way, and the desk fell through. I caught myself on the edge of a beam, and Hancock grabbed for my wrists. As I dangled between the two floors in a panic, the ground under Hancock was starting to strain as well, and I could hear the ferals he had mentioned before starting to stir.

He was beginning to pull me up when my fighting instinct kicked in. I jerked my right hand out of his clutch, drawing my pistol and shooting at a feral below me. With only one hand securing me, Hancock started to lose his grip, struggling to keep his footing and hold of me at the same time.

Another growled from behind, and I wiggled loose of Hancock, dropping to the next floor and narrowly avoiding its clawing at me as it dove past. Before I ever even got to my feet, I sent a bullet between the ferocious creature's eyes.

"Felina!" Hancock called to me from above. He pulled his knife and dropped down to my level, joining in the fray that had already begun. The ghouls kept coming in small waves, and we handily dealt with them, back to back.

Once we were sure there were no more coming, I started to take a good look around at our surroundings.

Hancock grasped my sides. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, querido." So much for any sexual exploits.

He lit a cigarette. "I wish you had that pip-boy on ya. We could use the light."

The brief illumination from his flip lighter revealed a door across the room. "Over there," I said with a point. "We can go that way."

"No, the stairs up are this way," he said, motioning in the opposite direction.

"Yeah, but didn't you say you barricaded that door?"

The cigarette between his lips pointed limply downward with his frown. "Fuck. Yeah…"

I started towards the exit I had spied before. "Let's see if we can find another way out, then."

He followed. "Alright, love."

As soon as we stepped through the door, the room flashed a blindingly bright white. As the shine faded, everything around us looked fresh and new. People in perfectly pressed and clean prewar clothes were bustling about a pristine office like nothing had happened. No sooner than my jaw dropped did everything flash again, returning to empty, dilapidated gloom, matching the rest of the building. I turned to Hancock. "Did you see that?"

His eyebrows were raised. "You mean you did, too? I thought it was just another jet flashback."

"How much jet does one have to take in their life to get flashbacks like that?"

"Shit, I dunno, but if we both saw it, I doubt that's what it was."

I was thoroughly rattled. "What the fuck even is this place?"

Hancock grabbed my hand. "Dunno, love."

We continued hesitantly into the room, but the only other exit was a set of stairs leading further down.

Hancock grimaced, stomping his cigarette out into the boards. "Fuck this. Let's just go back the other way and try to climb out where you fell."

I suddenly heard that whispery voice again from my dream. "H'bthnk … h'ehye-n'grkdl'lh…" It was coming from downstairs.

"No…" I'd like to think I must have thought I was still dreaming, because I'd hate to think I was that stupid. "I want to see what's down here." Yeah, let's go with that.

"Fhtagn… fhtagn… fhtagn…" It was like the voice was multiplied, one a split second behind the other, and it seemed to fade in, the ending syllables stopping abruptly like it was backmasked.

Hancock's eyes were wide as saucers. He grabbed my arm firmly. "Felina, this ain't a good…"

"Fhtagn… fhtagn… fhtagn…"

His demeanor suddenly and inexplicably changed as he released my arm and his body drifted toward the stairs. "Yeah, let's go," he said distractedly with half-lidded eyes as his foot dropped down onto the lower step.

We descended, driven against our will by forces we couldn't understand. The walls rumbled lightly as though slow music with too much bass was being played on the other side. The mysterious voice never stopped calling to us. It was so dark, it was as though the air itself was colored black. Hancock flicked his lighter open, and we used the flame to navigate the rusty metal stairs. Further and further down we went, the space we were exploring going much deeper than any basement should reasonably go.

As we reached the absolute bottom, the whispers were accompanied by wordless chanting and haunting wailing, and I swear I could hear the rhythmic calling of the whippoorwills once more, their chorused song in a steady beat akin to breathing. The walls on this level were just bare soil and exposed bedrock, and the air stank of rotting flesh.

We proceeded, entranced, around the corner and laid eyes on a group of seemingly sentient ghouls encircling a glowing stone obelisk with a woman carved into it. One figure was wearing a hooded robe and holding a book open. The ghouls' hands were raised as though in worship as they chanted. Human skulls were nailed to the statue, and it pulsed a languid green light. We were drawn to it, neither one of us wont to speak. Our feet carried us without our command, rather under someone else's, and we got closer… closer…

"Fhtagn… fhtagn… fhtagn…"

I was suddenly jarred out of my hypnosis when I felt a slight humming in my body. The baby was noticeably kicking for the first time, but I didn't have the chance to exult over it. Realizing the glow from the statue was radiation, I jumped, scurrying backwards away from it.

My sudden movement disrupted whatever ritual was taking place in front of us, and the ghouls turned our way, growling and snarling like ferals. The ghouls charged toward me. I drew my pistol like a bolt of lightning and proceeded to gunsling with fierce accuracy while Hancock continued drifting toward the irradiated statue, oblivious of what was happening around him.

I dropped every one of the ghouls that had been idolizing the thing and began firing at the robed man. He stood perfectly still, steadfast against my fire. After landing several shots in him, he finally dropped to the ground, but within seconds, his body dissolved into the floor as though he was never there, his robe lying in a flat heap in the gravel.

I froze, my heart pounding at my chest. "John!"

His movement slowed to a halt, but he still had his back to me.

"John! Get away from that thing!"

He just kept standing there a few feet away from the column, staring at it in bewitched awe.

"Hancock!" I couldn't come any closer to retrieve him due to the radiation, but I feared for our lives if we stayed a moment longer. "Hancock, please!" I cried.

The constant rumbling we had been feeling started to grow, and the obelisk was visibly shaking. That's when he snapped back to reality, jerking his head in my direction with a look of raw horror.

The monument fractured down the middle and half of it hit the dirt in chunks as the whispering intensified.

"Naflfhtagn… Naflfhtagn… Naflfhtagn…"

He turned and ran to me, grabbing my arm without stopping. We bolted up the stairs as fast as we could away from whatever was occurring in that accursed place.

The last I heard of the mysterious voice happened as we reached the very top. For the first and only time, it spoke in plain English.

"Go back to sleep…" It whispered. "Go back… to… sleeeep…"

We rushed straight through the room that had caved in and up to the door Hancock had secured from the other side, both of us pounding on it and yelling for Shaun to let us out.

After what felt like forever, the sound of him unfastening the door could be heard on the other side. Hancock and I tumbled through as soon as he had it open.

"What's going on?!" he exclaimed, dazed and half asleep.

Just then, we heard Dogmeat barking and growling frantically from the kitchen. The whippoorwills in my head – or maybe the ones outside – started wailing quicker and with more vigor.

We all turned our attention to our camp. The barks became more and more livid and the woman was shouting in that same jumbled language from the belly of the building.

"Naflfhtagn! Naflfhtagn!"

We automatically started running toward the commotion, hearing a gunshot before we ever reached our destination. The barking and shouting suddenly stopped, along with the whippoorwills, and my heart skipped a beat. _Oh, no! No…_

We rounded the corner to the kitchen simultaneously and stopped just inside the doorway. Dogmeat was fine, and nothing appeared out of place. After confirming Dogmeat was alright, my eyes went to the nameless woman. She was still sitting against the wall, having never utilized the sleeping bag I gave her. A moment later, she was sliding down one side of the wall, a trail of blood smearing behind her head. The pistol Hancock had given her spilled out of her hand and toppled to the floor beside her. Somehow, I don't think a stimpak was going to help.

The three of us all looked at each other, visibly shaken.

We didn't even have to discuss a thing. We all rapidly gathered our things up and fled the building.

The sun was peeking over the horizon as we ran away from the still rumbling structure.

"Mom…?" Shaun looked over at me with puzzled eyes, panting as we ran. "What …the hell …was going on …back there?"

"Hijo, that place is plagued by some otherworldly shit that I can't even begin to explain. Let's just forget about it, okay?"

He faced forward again. "Gladly."


	17. Foggy Mountain Top

After putting some distance between us and the Capital Wasteland, I was starting to feel a little better mentally. Physically, I was feeling a whole lot better. I remembered what that part of the pregnancy was like with Shaun. Getting the pip-boy back on my own arm, I picked up the pace a bit to try and take advantage of it, since I knew it wouldn't last.

The next leg of our journey should have taken one month. Should have. I didn't account for having to freeform traverse the Appalachian Mountains. The feel good part of my pregnancy ran thin as we blindly tried to cross the difficult terrain after getting a little lost.

"I don't know what went wrong, querido," I said, stopping to lean forward on my legs and catch my breath. We were halfway up a pretty steep incline. "The roads just… disappeared. There should have been… Shit, I don't know. It's like… " I flipped through the map screens on the pip-boy again as I panted. "It's like some of these roads on the map don't actually exist…or something. We were supposed to make it to the Mississippi River by …next week."

"Well, go ahead and get that idea out of your head, love." He stopped and looked up at the top of the mountain. "Look, there are some cabins up a little further. Can you make it that far?"

Still squatting and winded, I craned my neck up and squinted to see what Hancock was talking about, cursing myself under my breath for not taking the vertibird anyway. I focused on the cluster of houses built on the edge of a nearby peak that he had spied. "Yeah… I don't really have a choice."

"Do I need to carry you?"

I slowly turned my eyes to him. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Knowing him, no. "Don't be ridiculous." I stood up straight and refilled my lungs with the thin air. "I'm fine. Let's just go."

We were a stone's throw away when I plopped down on the ground. "Close…enough…" I said, drawing labored breathes. As if the steepness wasn't enough, the high altitude was starting to get to me.

Hancock knelt down beside me. "Are you alright, Felina?"

"I just… need to rest… for a minute."

Without warning, he grabbed hold of me and lifted me into his arms.

"John, stop!" I tried to kick and wiggle myself free, but I was too tired to fight him.

"Nah, I got this." He carried me the last few steps up to level ground and set me gently on my feet. Shaun and Dogmeat came rushing up beside us.

Shaun was smiling wide. "There! You made it, mom!" Dogmeat let out a cheerful bark.

I glanced around self-consciously to see if anyone had caught sight of what had just occurred as I smoothed out my suit. "Are you sure these houses aren't abandoned?"

A strange voice answered from a porch off to the side. "They ain't."

We all turned our heads toward the speaker. It was a balding old man with a long, gray beard that came down to a point. He looked like a permanent fixture on the rickety porch.

"Oh. Does your town have an inn?" I asked him.

"Not formally, ma'am. Ain't too many folks that come all the way up here. But that don't mean yer outta luck. Maybelle who runs the tavern has a spare room you can rent." He eyeballed my bulging belly. "Or if'n you ain't too keen on hanging 'round that crowd, I got extree room in my home."

I gave him a nervous smile. "We wouldn't want to put you out like that."

"Ain't no problem. I'd love the company. Name's Wade, by the way." We made our introductions with him, and he gave us a brief rundown of his town, Foggy Hill.

After some small talk, he convinced us into staying with him. It wasn't quite sundown, but I was spent. "We're just going to go get something to eat at the tavern and we'll be right back."

"You could eat here if ya like. I could whip somethin' up right quick."

"No, I couldn't. You're doing plenty for us already." I searched around me for Dogmeat. "Is it okay if the dog stays here with you?"

"Won't bother me none, but you ain't gotta do that. You can bring yer dog in the bar."

Knowing I was talking about him, Dogmeat planted in front of me and gave me his happiest panting face.

"No. The dog doesn't eat with us. It's… unsanitary."

"If'n you say so."

Dogmeat changed his tune and slinked over to the old man.

"Don't give me that pathetic puppy act. I know where that mouth's been and I know you won't keep it to yourself while we're eating."

Looking guilty, he laid down by Wade's feet with a flop, and we continued to the tavern.

Shaun was a little hurt over his dog's exile as we walked. "So Dogmeat can eat with us when we camp but not the rest of the time?"

"After that incident in Roanoke, yes, precisely."

"That's not fair! He wasn't the unsanitary one, the diner was!"

"That doesn't change the fact he got us kicked out."

"He's a good dog, mom. He wouldn't have run across all those tables if the place wasn't infested by radroaches. He was just trying to –"

"End of discussion."

Hancock gave me a look. "Admit it, you would have left anyway. You hate those things."

"Helping or hurting, John."

He threw his hands up. "Alright I'll stay out of this." He held the door open for us.

Shaun huffed as we entered the town tavern. It was a dim, dingy narrow room with long tables and benches on one end, a bar in the center against the back wall, and a solitary pool table at the far end. A few people were sitting at the bar, being waited on by a young girl that was dressed way too skimpily for the cool air up in those mountains. We took a seat at the table nearest the bar.

I propped my feet up on the bench opposite of me and started digging through Hancock's duffle bag, while he lit a cigarette and Shaun continued to pout. I started pulling out some of the pieces we had scavenged along the way. "Here, Shaun." I shoved the items toward him. "Go pawn some of this junk off on the barkeep."

"And why would I want to do that?" he asked me facetiously.

"Because, you get to keep ten percent of whatever you make, so negotiate well."

His brow rose. "Fifteen."

"Save your bartering for the barkeep, hijo."

He scooped the spare weapon parts and ammo up off the table and stood up. "Fine."

As he scampered off, I leaned my head over on Hancock's shoulder and subtly inhaled some of his smoke. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes as he extinguished his cigarette. "You need to quit that."

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I'm just tired." I scooted a little closer to him. "Do you think we need to order at the bar?"

"I dunno." He looked over his other shoulder back at Shaun. The boy was doing his best to charm the girl working the customers. "Hey, killer, get us some food while you're up there."

"Okay, but I'm taking my cut before paying for the meal," he replied caustically.

I sighed. "That's my boy." While still reclined on Hancock, I examined the pip-boy map closely. "I'm not seeing Foggy Hill on here at all."

"You're probably not gonna, love. It was probably called something else before the war."

"Good point." I manually input the town's name into the database.

Shaun returned with four plates of some unidentifiable meat in gravy with a biscuit on the side of each one. "What is this?" I asked him.

"The special," he replied as he handed me a bag of caps and sat down.

I looked at it suspiciously. "Why are there four?"

"One is for Dogmeat."

"That should have come out of your share," I remarked dryly as I dug into my dinner.

After we ate, I led us all back to Wade's house. It was a cozy one room cabin with a wood burning stove in the center, already crackling and toasty warm. I immediately started removing my boots from my achy feet and set them by the door.

Shaun set all his stuff down right inside the doorway beside my shoes, except for his violin case and the food he brought back for the dog, and then ran back to the porch. I followed him outside, barefoot.

Wade smiled as Shaun gave Dogmeat his dinner. "I had a dog like that when I was your age. Name was Samson."

Shaun perked up immediately. "This is Dogmeat. He never leaves my side... unless mom makes him," he said, giving me a little glare.

Wade smirked as he lit a pipe. "Sounds about right."

Shaun gave the dog one more pat and sat down on the porch beside Wade with his violin case. "Can I show you something?"

"Sure, sonny. Is it what's in that case?"

"Yep."

He opened the case and the old man's eyes lit up. "That's got to be the finest fiddle I've ever seen!"

"It has a name. The Soil Stradivarius."

"Ya don't say?"

"It means a lot to me. I don't really know how to play it though."

"Welp," Wade began as he puffed on the pipe. "We're just gonna have ta fix that. Go in the house and grab the box on the mantle for me."

While Shaun was gone, I spoke to Wade for a moment. "Where can we set up our sleeping bags? I'm ready to turn in already."

"Anywhere is fine. Make yerself at home."

Shaun came back with the requested box, and Wade pulled his own violin out of it. "Show me what you know, sonny," he said as he rosined the bow.

I smiled to myself as I walked back in the house.

Inside, Hancock already had our two sleeping bags laid out behind the stove, zipped together as one. He was crouched by them, patting the space next to him with a grin. "I know you get cold, love, so I got as close to the fire as I could."

"That's sweet, amor," I remarked as I removed my suit jacket and tie and nestled into the double bag he had set up. My eyelids were heavy and hard to hold open, despite the scratchy sounds of Shaun either torturing a small animal or playing his violin on the porch.

Lying on my side, Hancock spooned up behind me, his warm body enveloping mine as the sleep washed over me in an overwhelming wave.

I could still hear the dual strings faintly in the distance as I gradually drifted out of my slumber – one set smooth and perfect, coupled with the amateur struggling of my son trying to keep up. I was disoriented and feeling warm…tingly…strangely and unwelcomingly aroused. I involuntarily moaned, slowly realizing that Hancock was groping at my breasts over my shirt from behind. In response to my moans, he started grinding into my backside, sliding his hand under my shirt.

I grumbled at him, still half asleep, "Mmnn, John…"

"Yes, love?" He purred into my ear, his palm trailing down into the front of my pants.

I pushed his hand away. "Not here."

"Why not? It's been a while. Shaun and Wade are occupied. We're all alone…" His hand returned to its previous path. "Even if they walked in, right now," he said, palming the space between my legs, "we're hidden under the covers." He pushed his bulge up against my bottom and his voice got lower and breathy. "They wouldn't know. And you don't have to do anything." He started to slip a finger in. "I'll do all the work."

I slapped his hand and pulled away from him. "I said no!"

…

* * *

…

She fucking slapped at me. "I said no!" she snapped at me as she scooted away from me.

I was speechless. And furious. Not because she turned me down, but because of how she did. "You've got to be kidding me," I hissed, sitting up.

"Is it so hard to believe I don't want to fool around?" she asked, venom in her tone.

"No, but you ain't gotta slap at me like I'm a dog."

"What's the fucking point anyway?" She shifted in the sleeping bag, drawing her knees closer to her chest and tucking her head down. "Even if we don't get interrupted, we can't actually _do_ anything. I'd rather just go to sleep."

"Well, that makes one of us," I replied distantly.

"Goodnight, John," she said coldly.

"Hey, don't feel compelled to apologize or anything," I remarked sarcastically.

"I don't," was her muffled response from inside the sleeping bag. "You should know better."

I should know better? How could I? This was the first time she had ever reacted like that. I just sat there, silently fuming. Despite the circumstances, the tent I was pitching wasn't readily falling.

After a few moments of quiet angst, she sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? Please just go to sleep."

I got up. "Nah, I'm too awake now."

She poked her head out of the blanket. "Where are you going?"

"To the bar." I was already sliding my boots and coat on. "Goodnight, Felina," I said flatly.

She huffed, but didn't verbally protest. She just buried her face rigidly back in the sleeping bag.

It was dark by then as I stormed over to the tavern, my brain racing. It had been like this for a while. She had been getting more and more combative by the day, and we'd had hardly any physical contact since the Capital Wasteland. Needless to say, it was more than a little frustrating.

There were notably more people in the bar at that point. A quick glance around brought to my attention that they were all human. I was the only ghoul. A few heads turned as I sat at a stool near the girl serving drinks, but no one said anything. No one even seemed interested in me beyond a brief eyeful, thankfully minding their own business.

The honey blonde girl tending bar in cut-off shorts and a tied-off shirt showing a glimpse of midriff couldn't have been more than twenty. I watched her work the customers with the flirtatious charm of an over-sexed adolescent, and wondered to myself how she came into ownership of the small, old town's only bar at such a young age. I reached in my pocket for my mentats and took one from the tin.

No sooner had the tablet slipped down my throat when she came over to me. "Hey. I saw you in here earlier with that pregnant woman and that little boy."

"Yeah, that's my wife and son."

"He was really cute." She smiled coolly. "No offense, sugar, but how does a ghoul end up with a human wife and child? I mean, can ghouls even have children with humans?"

My eyelids involuntarily slid half closed in annoyance at this played out line of questioning. Everywhere we went, I heard some iteration of this ever since Felina started showing. "This one can," I replied, shifting my gaze to the draughts behind her. "Can I just have a beer, please?" I put some caps on the counter.

"Sure, sugar."

She slid the caps off her side of the counter and came back with a pint glass filled to the brim with very little head, expertly setting it down in front of me without spilling a drop. "I'm Maybelle. Just holler if ya need anything, sweetie." She gave me a little wink and went to attend to the other end of the bar.

I took my drink and turned to face the rest of the tavern, resting my feet on the support bar of the stool as I surveyed the room more carefully. There were a couple of young folks around, but most of them were grizzled, old mountain men with long, scraggily beards, drowning their boredom in suds. Unfortunately, I didn't see a juke box, but I noticed no one was using the billiard table. I took my beer with me across the bar to the pool table and set the glass on a stool against the wall where the cue sticks were leaning.

The cues were all bent to some degree. After selecting the straightest one, I started to rack the balls for nine ball. I had tooled around with the game ever since I was a teenager, but there wasn't much else to do for fun back in Sanctuary, so I had sharpened my skills some, recently. I pocketed them all almost flawlessly as I drained my pint glass empty. Setting the balls back up once more, I sensed someone standing behind me. I turned around and was face-to-face with Maybelle. "Something wrong?" I asked her.

"Naw, sugar. I was just seeing if you wanted another drink."

"Sure." I gave her a handful of caps.

I was halfway done with round two of my solo game when she returned. After setting my drink down, she paused and watched me finish clearing the table. "You're pretty good," she remarked, nonchalantly.

"Not that great, but thanks." I started racking them again.

"I'm almost that good," she told me. "I spend most of my time in here serving drinks and don't get to practice as much as I'd like. And when I do have time, these pool sharks 'round here," she said with a twirl of her finger, "always wipe the floor with me."

"Yeah, I could see that being a problem," I replied, pulling the rack away from the diamond formation.

"Where's the rest of the balls?" she asked, wiping her fingers with a towel tucked into her waistband. "I got a minute if you don't mind playing me. It'd be nice to play someone new."

I placed the rack back down and grabbed the rest of the balls. "Yeah, alright."

It was a pretty close game, despite a few careless mistakes she made. In the end, I won effortlessly.

"See, whaddah tell ya?" she said, picking up my second empty pint glass. "You're pretty good."

"You weren't so bad yourself."

"Thanks, sweetie. Since you won, I'll give ya a beer on the house."

"Can't argue with that."

She brought me another pint and lingered as I took my first sip. "Wanna go again?" she asked innocently.

"You sure you got time?"

"Eh, fuck these guys. They come in here every night and drink til they're stupid, and it's the same thing every day. It's rare that we have any visitors, so they can wait a little bit."

"If you say so."

She started racking. "You wanna put a few caps on it this time for fun?"

And there it was. I had her pegged for a hustler the moment I saw her interact with the other men in the bar, but now I was sure of it. "No, I'm good on all that, doll."

She smirked. "Just a few. Give me the chance to win back the cost ah that beer yer drinkin'."

I sighed. I was well aware of how this worked: I put that meager amount down, she lets me win, then she tries to up the ante a little bit at a time while she keeps losing, eventually taking me for a ride. "If you insist."

"Alright." She smiled coyly. "Since you won last, your break."

I cleaned house, barely giving her a chance to shoot. Then, just to prove a point, I intentionally scratched on the eight ball. "Well, there's your beer," I said, reaching inside my coat for the caps.

She came toward me while my hand was still in my coat. "Ain't you a smart one," she remarked with a quiet slyness, palming the caps still near my chest. "Good game, sugar." With her face uncomfortably close to mine and breasts pressed against me, she bent her bare leg, drawing it upward and grazing my thigh with it as she ruffled my collar – all distractions so she could try to slip her hand with the caps into the pocket where I keep my chems.

I grabbed the wrist of her thieving hand firmly, stopping her from reaching its destination and pulled her other hand off my shirt, holding them between us. The caps she was holding hit the ground with a series of staggered _tinks,_ topped by an inhaler of jet that she had somehow lifted off me already.

"What are you doing?" I asked her in a chiding growl.

A devilish expression washed over her face for only me to see. "Jun- _yuh_!" She called out in a helpless voice.

I let go of her and stepped back as the massive young fella in coveralls with a deputy tin star on the breast pocket stood up from the bar and loomed over us. "What's the problem, Sissy?"

She exaggeratedly rubbed her wrists and pouted pitifully. "He grabbed me," she whimpered.

_Fuck._

* * *

Much to my surprise, the bulky good ol' boy didn't rough me up. He just threw me into the town's only jail cell and grumpily took a seat at the police station's desk, pulling an unmarked jar of clear liquid out of the top drawer. "I had my eye on you since you first walked in, boy. I knew you were gonna be trouble."

"Why," I asked, deadpan," because I'm a ghoul?"

He took a swig from the jar, baring his teeth with a strained "ah" as he swallowed. He brought his feet up to rest on the desk. "Now I gotta spend the rest of muh night in here with you until pa gets up."

"You don't actually," I remarked as I wrapped my fingers around the bars in front of me. "I can't exactly go anywhere."

"I ain't fallin' for any ah that sneaky shit." He took another swig from the jar and then held it out to me between the bars. "Here," he said begrudgingly.

I accepted his offer, instantly regretting it as the liquid fire burned its way like lava down to my stomach.

The second time he tried to pass it to me, I declined. He half smiled with a slight nod. "Stronger than what yer used to, huh?"

"Alcohol ain't really my preferred ride," I said, being a little more open than I meant to, the bootleg lava already beginning to kick my ass.

He was starting to fall under the moonshine's spell, too. "Not Maybelle's either. That's why she runs the bar. She's the only one we can trust to not drink the whole keg." He screwed the lid back on the jar and set it down. "Which, if I had to guess is the real reason she targeted you if she saw you were holdin' like I did."

"So you know I didn't hit on her, right? I'm happily married, ya know."

"Yeah, I know."

I let go of the bars and stepped back. "So why are you keeping me here, then? Is there a chem ban in this town or something, because if so, I didn't know."

"Nothing like that. I know she's a minx, but Maybelle's muh sissy, and pa would tan my hide if I didn't follow up on her accusation towards an outsider 'assaulting' her."

I sighed and sunk down onto the cell's bench. "Kinda hard to imagine anyone 'tanning the hide' of a big fella like you."

"He's muh pa. He ain't exactly tiny either."

We chatted a little more, and Junior wasn't a bad guy. I told him my family's story, and he told me the easiest path to get across the mountains. We shot the shit for a while until he started to doze off in a drunken haze. I followed suit and laid down on the bench, eventually catching a nap myself.

I woke up to a loud bang. I bolted straight up, wide-eyed, and saw Felina standing on the other side of the bars, glaring at me like I had pissed in her Sugar Bombs. She looked like she hadn't been to sleep yet with the bags under her fiery eyes and her wrinkled button-up shirt untucked and uncovered by her usual coat and tie.

"What the fuck, Hancock!?"

"It's not my fault…" I began.

"Bullshit!" She pounded her fist against the bars with another bang. "¡¿Cual es tu pinche pedo?! First you leave all angry about things that are beyond my control, then you're gone all _pinche_ night! I had to go looking for you, and that girl at the bar told me _everything_! You tried to hustle her and then you _hit_ on her?! ¡¿Como pudiste?! HOW?!" Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes as all the anger in her voice turned to sadness. "Is this how I have to live my life now? Do I really have to worry about you wandering around on me? Just because we can't…" She put her face in her hands and sobbed. "No merezco esto…"

I stood up and walked over to the bars. "No, love, I swear –"

She beat her fists against the metal once more, and I jumped back as the door rattled. "Open this cell!" she demanded to Junior. "Let me in there so I can murder him!"

Junior groggily brought his feet to the floor. "I'm not gonna do that ma'am. You need to rightly calm down."

"I am calm!" She screamed.

"Not to get involved in your business, ma'am –"

"Thanks for the input, but it really _isn't_ your business," she hissed at him.

"Unless your husband here has a history of womanizin' on ya, I wouldn't be believin' what Maybelle told ya."

"If you don't believe her, then why is he in here?!"

He shrugged. "Public intox?"

Felina narrowed her eyes. "Oh-ho-ho-ho," she sarcastically chuckled in an unsettling, restrained rage sort of way. "So when will you be releasing him into my _loving_ arms again?"

"It's not up to me. I gotta wait for the sheriff to come in."

She planted her ass forcefully into a chair, folding her arms. "I'll wait with you."

We all sat around uncomfortably as Felina mumbled to herself in Spanish until Junior's pa came through the door. He looked disenchanted by my presence, but not at all upset. More bored than anything. "Whaddhe do?" he asked his son.

"Ah, nuthin'. Sissy couldn't hustle 'im so she claims he was getting fresh."

He calmly walked over to the cell and unlocked it. "Stay away from Maybelle," he warned me, sliding the door open. "She's a slick one."

"No problem," I told him as I stumbled out of the cell, still a little dizzy from the nightcap.

"Try to stay outta trouble, Hancock," his son called after me.

"Yeah, thanks, Junior. Have a good one." I walked past Felina out the door without a glance. I stepped out into the cold, foggy morning and was trudging down the gravel road when I heard her coming up behind me. She yanked on my arm, and I swung around to face her.

I glared at her. "Just don't! I can't deal with you when you're like this."

"When _I'm_ like this?!" I noticed her fingers balling into fists as her brow drew further down in sync with the corners of her lips. "I just had to come get you out of _jail_!"

"No, you didn't. They let me out." I replied facetiously. "You know, I ain't exactly thrilled about spending the night in jail, either. It ain't like I got arrested on purpose, Felina."

"What were you thinking?!"

"What was _I_ thinking? Well, I didn't beat up an old lady, for one…"

Her fists drew further up like she wanted to punch me but couldn't commit. "Well, aren't you clever," she growled.

I sighed, pushing her hands down. This had to stop. "I'm sorry, Felina. I really am. The whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. All that aside, I'm sorry for fighting with you. I don't want to fight with you at all. I shouldn't have left like I did last night." I put my arms around her, but she was being stubbornly stiff. "Fine," I said as I released her. "You ain't gotta forgive me right away. I'll admit I was being an ass, but I need you to know I love you. And no, you don't have to live your life worrying about me wandering on ya. If anything, I think that's what I'm so mad about right now. It hurt my feelings that you even thought that was a possibility."

She finally started to visibly soften. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but instead she just dove back into my arms, sobbing a little.

"Felina –"

"I was so worried, John! You were gone all night…"

"Hey," I said in my most gentle voice. "I wouldn't have done that on purpose, you know that." With her head buried in my chest, I began to pet her espresso brown hair. It was the longest I'd ever seen it, almost reaching her shoulders. I pulled her away enough to see her face, tilting it up toward me with a finger under her chin. "You're my everything, Felina."

She smiled, her tears already drying. "Eres mi todo, mi amor."

I pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead. "C'mon, love. We're burning daylight. Let's get our stuff and put this stupid shit behind us."


	18. Wicked River

We didn't speak about Foggy Hill again once it was in our rearview.

We made it across the mountains pretty easily, thanks to the directions Junior gave me, and were back on relatively flat terrain. At this point, we were as south as we needed to be, and as we traveled west away from the base of the mountain range, I started to notice the kinds of differences that Felina had foretold at the beginning of our journey. For one, it was significantly warmer there than it was back in the Commonwealth when we had left it almost two months before – more than I really expected it to be for November. It wasn't uncomfortable, just kinda jarring. The second most striking thing, everything was covered in a blanket of leafy vines. I had never seen so much green in my life…

Another evident difference about the south was the size of the radroaches. They were bigger, and I don't mean by a little bit. They were practically the same size as us, but Felina's irrational fear of the normal sized ones back home managed to keep any of us from mentioning this anomaly out loud, which seemed strangely disconcerting to me. I think they had come to the same conclusion that I had – this was probably the mystery meat drowned in gravy back at the Foggy Hill bar. But we don't talk about Foggy Hill.

At night, we had to take extra care in selecting our camp grounds. As soon as the sun would go down: bloodbugs…bloodbugs everywhere. The closer we got to the Mississippi River, the more of them there were.

We were only another day away from the Mississippi River when the air started to change. It was humid and stinky, and it was as warm as a mild summer day in the Commonwealth. Dark clouds were rolling in from the west and they quickly blotted out the sun. Despite the lack of direct rays, it was balmy. We were scouring a small abandoned prewar town covered in the intrusive green ivy for adequate shelter when I actually started to break into a sweat. "I know we are technically closer to the sun here, love, but is it supposed to be this warm? I mean, it's winter."

"It does seem pretty warm, but I don't really know. I'm from the south _west_. I'm not very familiar with the normal climate for this part of the country." She slowed to a stop, putting a hand on her lower back with her belly stuck out. She was starting to get that obviously pregnant posture and was forced to wear that pink dress, her suit being too small.

Without any warning, Shaun started frantically firing his laser rifle, and we turned to see what he was aiming at. A short-legged reptilian creature as terrifying and large as a deathclaw was approaching on all fours. It wasn't as fast as a deathclaw, nor did it have the signature ghastly talons of one, but its long, toothy maw seemed to fill that horrifying void, and its massive tail was longer than its body.

I didn't waste a moment drawing my shotgun. "What the fuck is that thing?!"

Felina didn't bother with her pistol. She started chunking grenades at it, running backwards. "Alligator?!"

It was scurrying toward us, snapping its treacherous snout open and shut like a yao guai trap, undeterred by the explosives being hurled at it.

Fleeing from it, we rounded the corner of a tall building, and I stumbled over a cellar door. I yanked at the vines covering it and tried pulling up on the handle, but it was chained shut. I blew the lock to pieces with my shotgun and flung the door open. "In here!"

We all tumbled into the cover, and I slammed the door down behind us. It was pitch dark and feverishly hot inside. I lit my flip lighter and searched for a light source. Shaun hit a breaker on the wall and the equipment around us whirred to life as the room lit up.

"What is all this?" Shaun asked.

I glanced around at the green glass bottles everywhere. "Wine cellar?"

Felina looked up at a vent over her head as it began to forcefully blow on her, whipping her hair away from her face. "Air conditioning!" She collapsed onto a crate with a relieved sigh.

Her delight of the cold air bothered me a little, remembering our main destination was the desert. I shrugged it off as pregnancy stuff and cracked the cellar door open a little to spy on the monster that chased us in there. It was slinking through the greenery across the street like it was caught up in a profane game of hide and seek with us. "What the hell is an alligator?"

"That thing," she said, wiping the sweat from her brow. "But smaller. I didn't know they came this far inland. I thought they only lived in swamps."

"Your prewar knowledge can only go so far, I guess." I pushed the barrel of my shotgun between the vent in the door and fired at it. It snarled and darted its attention all around, unsure where the blast had come from. "Were they edible?"

"Yeah, but I never ate one."

Shaun came up beside me and poked the tip of his laser rifle out next to mine. "Hold your fire, dad," he said to me quietly.

"Why?"

"I have an idea." He angled his rifle off to the side ahead of it. He waited patiently as it lumbered over toward the ruins of a car. Once it was close, Shaun popped off a shot at the car's gas tank. As fire and smoke poured from the metal frame, the alligator turned to run. A moment later, the gas tank ignited, blowing the car and the creature to kingdom come. Its charred corpse flew several yards away, shriveling up into a burning ball as the flames quelled around it.

I patted his back. "Nicely done!"

We were barely settled into our shelter when an earth shattering crack of thunder broke outside and the wind started to rattle the cellar door. I examined the door for a way to barricade it shut, struggling to hold the thing closed against the gusts as I set the latch. I plopped down next to Felina and dug through my pockets for a hit. "Sounds like a goddamn hurricane out there."

She started messing with the radio on her pip-boy. "We're too far inland for a hurricane," she replied condescendingly.

I pushed in the canister on my jet. "Yeah, I'm aware of that."

She picked up a radio signal and started fine tuning it until she got it in as clear as she could. A song was playing:

 

_"…Takin' my rocket on a long, hot run_

_Ooh, goin' out, oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun_

_Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88_

_I'll be around every night about eight_

_You know it's great, don't be late_

_Everybody likes my Rocket '88…"_

 

She looked at me dubiously. "Rocket 88?"

Shaun smiled. "I like this one better."

I shrugged. "88, 69, whatever." 69 held no significant meaning for me at that moment.

The song ended and a dj came on, speaking with the tiniest hint of a drawl. "That was Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats with _Rocket 88_. I'm George, your host here on Sunny South Radio, broadcasting to you from the legendary Sun Studios… " The signal started getting staticky. "Now, I'm …. … … on the air through the storm as long … but I don't know how much … going to be possible. The winds are really starting to pick up down here by the river, and if you … shelter yet, I highly suggest you do. It looks like we may be in for some more tornados… …. … Elvis … right here at…"

 

_"…_

_You are the only one I chose._

_Don't leave me … all these heartaches,_

_Only you and heaven knows_

_About my troubles troubles troubles._

_When it rains, it really pours..._

_…"_

 

The station was all white noise by then. Felina turned the radio off. "Tornados." she remarked distantly.

It was still kinda early to go to bed, but listening to the winds rip and tear at the buildings above us was not as exciting as it sounds. I rolled out my sleeping bag and laid on top of it with my eyes closed. It was much too warm still to think about getting in it.

"Going to sleep?" Felina asked.

"What else is there to do?"

Shaun obviously agreed, setting up his bed as well. Felina obstinately sat at attention for a while, but she eventually joined the rest of us on the floor.

The next morning, we emerged from our bunker into a sunny day. It was no longer humid, and it was a much more appropriate temperature for the season, though still a little warmer than the Commonwealth would be. The winds from the previous night had probably caused a great deal of new destruction, but in unfamiliar territory, there was none apparent to us among the viney, post-war landscape.

We made it to the muddy brown river by midafternoon. It was much wider than I had imagined and was violently dragging debris downstream, giving a hint at how strong the current was.

Felina had a look at the map. "We got a little off track," she said with agitation, quietly cursing the greenery that covered everything, including the roads. "We need to go further south to find the bridge." She started heading that way.

"Hey, don't sweat it. We shouldn't have to go far. I'm sure there's more than one bridge across."

"A river this wide," she replied, "not many."

We followed her lead, and the wilderness around us became an obviously once industrial district with railroad tracks running parallel to the banks. We still hadn't found a bridge when it started getting close to sunset.

I stopped by a railway car. "We need to go ahead and pick our shelter for the night. As bad as the bloodbugs were back east, I imagine there will only be more this close to the river." I pulled out the solitary bobby pin I'd been hanging onto and picked at the lock on the car.

"It's a _river_ , John. Bloodbugs breed in still water."

With the lock cracked, I slid the railcar open and peered inside. "Yes, and where there's a water source such as a river, there will also be more still water inland," I remarked as I hopped up and examined the contents of the car. Every crate inside contained packs of cigarettes with unfamiliar labels. I pocketed a few of them.

She stopped dramatically. "I wanted to get across the river, _today_."

I sighed, leaning on my hand against the doorway. "Let's not fight about this, okay? I don't mind walking a bit further, but I ain't trying to get caught with my pants down when it gets dark, feel me?"

She blinked slowly, taking a breath. "Okay." She motioned toward the trailer I was braced on. "In a pinch we can hold up in one of these railroad cars."

I drummed my fingers against it with a smile before I jumped down. "Exactly what I was thinking, love."

And so we pushed on, following the line of cars on the tracks. It very suddenly got darkish as clouds started rolling in again, and I called Felina's attention to it. "Let's just stop for the night. We know we have shelter here. Even if we get across, we don't know what's over there."

She reluctantly agreed. While she was picking the lock on the nearest car, I went to work on the door of the next car.

Felina had hers open first. "Got it," she proclaimed. I kept messing with the one I was on. "I got this one, John. You can stop."

It popped at that moment. I slid it open and turned to Shaun. "Hey, killer. Do you and Dogmeat want your own railcar to yourselves tonight?"

He looked back and forth between Felina and me before replying, "Um, yes!"

Felina's face contorted. "John, no! I'm not comfortable with that idea."

Shaun was already climbing in. "I'll be fine, mom." He slid the door closed behind him and the dog.

Felina glared at me. "Why did you do that?"

I hopped into our separate car and held my hand out to her. "C'mon, love. We haven't had any time alone in over a month."

She refused my hand, straining to get in on her own.

"Let me help you."

"No! I've got it." She threw her stuff over the edge of the car's floor.

I watched uncomfortably as she pulled herself up. "Felina, love, you're halfway through a pregnancy. There's nothing wrong with getting help."

"Fuck off," she muttered, getting to her feet.

I just stared at her, speechless.

She huffed as she looked around at the crates, kicking one of them with a grudge. "All cigarettes. Of fucking course." She flung her sleeping bag open and sat on it, removing her boots.

I lit a candle and slid the door shut. After I unrolled my bed, I sat down next to her. "Why are you so angry with me all the time?"

Her disturbingly cavalier response was delayed. "Not all the time."

"But you admit it. You're angry. What did I do? Everything I do is for you. I do everything you ask, but you still ain't happy."

"Was it 'for me' when you went to the bar, hit on that girl, and spent the night in jail?"

My eyes narrowed. "Yep." _Here we go…_

"Really? Por favor, how is that?"

"Because I was angry and I knew if I stayed, it would turn into a fight, so I left. However, I did _not_ hit on that girl."

"Yeah… I know…"

"Then why ain't you letting it go?"

"Because… " She glanced around frustratedly at the crates of cigarettes. "Maybe you didn't try to pick _that_ girl up, but it's going to happen with some other girl…"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "So you're angry at me for something I ain't even done yet? That is seriously fucked up. I wouldn't even –"

"You had a reputation before you met me."

"Yeah, _before_ I met _you_. You're my _wife_! If I had any desire to still sleep around, I wouldn't have married you."

"I can't satisfy you like this!" She exclaimed, holding her arms out to her sides, accentuating her round belly.

"What are you talking about? I think you're beautiful…"

"But, how can I expect you to go so long without… intimacy…"

"Give me a little more credit, Felina. I went without for months when we first started traveling together. I can wait."

"Well, I have never been as sexually frustrated as I am right now. And if you feel anything like I do… " She trailed off in a sob. "I'm scared I'm going to lose you."

I cradled her face in my hands, and a tear rolled down onto the back of my hands. "You're just hormonal, love."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asked with the anger returning to her voice.

Maybe not the best thing to have said to her right then. I decided to gloss past it. "I'm not sexually frustrated. I'm frustrated by all the bickering and arguing. I don't like it when you rival me. We're supposed to be partners." I put my arms around her and pulled her down beside me into our sleeping bag nest.

"This is so hard, querido! I had a difficult time with Nate when I was pregnant with Shaun, but at least he and I could still have sex. The hormones make me want it… bad! And I wasn't fresh on the other side of a chem problem back then either." She let out a frustrated sigh, fighting a cry. "And I'm fucking surrounded by cigarettes but can't have one. I feel hideous, like you wouldn't want to have sex with me anyway, and even if we did mess around, it seems like an awful lot of work since we can't just go at it normally. I feel like crying all the time, but I hate crying, so then I get mad… I don't know what to do with myself, John!"

"Hey, it's gonna be alright." I began petting her hair. "You're strong, Felina. I know you can do it."

"Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe we should just go back…"

"No, you want that baby to be born in the desert, it's gonna be born in the desert." I gave her a warm smile. "Look at us. We made it over the mountains. We're halfway to our destination. You're halfway through the pregnancy. We've made it this far. It's all downhill from here."

"Downhill?" She finally smiled, however sarcastically. "I don't think that's the expression you're looking for."

"Yeah, as in the opposite of uphill. We're past the hardest parts."

She sighed, laying her head on my chest. "If you say so."

The conversation dropped off after that, and my mind started wandering as I pet her hair and stared at the ceiling.

" _And if you feel anything like I do… I'm scared I'm going to lose you_ …"

_What the fuck did she mean by that?_ _I_ certainly wasn't considering leaving _her_.

There's no way she would have brought us all the way out there if she had any intention of leaving me. I mean, unless that was a new plan she had developed on the way… No, I was just being paranoid. I always found it hard to believe that she loved me at all, but of course she did, right? After all, she tried turning ghoul for me once, and now she was having our baby. You'd think after everything we'd been through, I wouldn't still have to actively convince myself of that. I forcibly changed my train of thought.

She tilted her face up to mine. "What are you thinking about, John?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"I was just thinking… It's kind of odd, ain't it?"

"What?"

"That these railcars are the only thing that ain't covered in those vines."

"That _is_ weird." Her brow furrowed as she laid her head back down. "Goodnight, querido."

I sighed. "Goodnight, love." _No fooling around tonight, either, apparently_. At least I still got to hold her. I blew the candle out and closed my eyes.

* * *

I woke after only a couple hours, disoriented. Felina was still in my arms, fast asleep. I felt kinda… queasy…

A strip of dim light appeared above me and three figures peered at me from the ceiling. I sat up, reaching for my shotgun.

I recognized Shaun's voice right away. "Mom! Dad! Get up!"

Felina sat up, too. "What the hell is going on?"

I suddenly realized we were moving, though not very fast.

Felina was slipping into her boots at the same time that I was sliding the door open. What little light outside was glinting off of the diagonal metal beams of a bridge over the river, going by within inches of the railcar, and there was no room to come out.

"Up heeyah!" It was a little girl's voice. "It da only way out!"

I didn't stop to question anything that was going on. I hoisted Felina up through the roof. Once she was safely out, I grabbed all our stuff I could, leaving behind the unrolled sleeping bags, and climbed up some crates to the roof. The others were already running to the back of the train. I looked to the front and saw why – the bridge was out. The train was gradually slowing down, but it didn't look like it was going to stop in time.

I ran after them, jumping from car to car. Everyone had already climbed down and jumped off by the time I got to the caboose, except for Dogmeat. He was nervously prancing his paws at the edge and whimpering. Shaun was running after us from further down the bridge and screaming for him to jump, but the dog was obviously too terrified.

As the front of the train made it to the end of the bridge and started to fall, the cars began speeding up in response to gravity pulling them down, and then even more as it touched the torrentuous river, the current trying to drag them. I tossed our things to the bridge and grabbed hold of the dog, bringing him down with me in a rolling tumble just as the car behind us began to topple over the broken edge into the river.

As soon as his paws hit the ground, Dogmeat darted off to Shaun, who was running towards us. I turned around to look over the side of the bridge at the literal train wreck, but the high, rushing waters of the river had already swallowed it, and it was too dark anyhow. I started limping after Dogmeat, scuffed up from my rough landing. I was rattled by the close call, but I pushed through toward Felina.

Up ahead, Shaun dove down to meet his German shepherd on the ground, throwing his arms around his neck. The little girl was a little beyond him and Felina was even further ahead, trying to gather up all our scattered belongings.

"You two alright?" I asked once I was close to Shaun.

"Yes, dad." He held the dog tighter. "We're fine."

I patted both my son and the dog on the head as I passed.

As I got closer to the girl, she gave me a nod. "You good?"

"Yep. You?"

She kept walking past me to Shaun. "All good, bwah," she said with a wave.

I got to Felina who had various items in her arms. I pulled her close, holding her possessively to my chest with a hand behind her head. "Are you okay?"

She started sniffling.

I asked again, more urgently. "Are you okay?!"

She shook her head "no" between my palm and my chest.

My heart skipped a beat. I pulled her away from me by her shoulders to examine her but couldn't see her well enough in the dark. She burst into tears and I started to panic. "What's wrong, Felina?!"

She held up her guitar case and then dropped it to the ground with a resounding _twang_ coming from inside. "It's broken!"

I relaxed. "Hey, that's alright, love! We'll get you another one. You had me scared there for a second!"

She dove back into my arms, hitting me in a sore spot, and I winced.

She gently pulled away and looked me over as she dried the tears from her face. "Are you hurt?" She asked me weakly.

"It's just a scratch," I said with a smile.

"Oh…" She seemed a little in shock, or maybe just half asleep. "I saw the stimpaks around here..." She flipped her pip-boy light on. "Somewhere." While she was looking around the ground for them, I searched my pocket for some med-x. It did hurt a bit, but she didn't need to know.

She held a stimpak out to me, looking down and pushing her hair behind her ear with her other hand, still sniffling some. "What just happened?" She asked as she turned the light back off.

"I dunno, love. You know as much as I do," I replied, blindly injecting the chems by feel. She seemed so upset, I didn't want to bother with asking her to turn her light back on.

The others had reached us by then. The girl spoke up. "It was 201's. Dey was tryin' to jack da train."

All I could tell by the light of the muted, overcast night sky about the stray girl Shaun had picked up was she was barefoot and about the same height as Shaun. Her silhouette indicated she either had on some kind of headdress or a lot of hair.

Shaun motioned toward her. "This is Peri- _doh_ ," he said, stressing the last syllable, "spelled with a 'T' at the end. She came into the railway car while I was sleeping."

"Mais, I _was_ comin' to get some supplies..." She said resentfully as she walked past us. Come on back to da Antebellum wit' me. We can talk on da way."

Felina strapped her case with the broken guitar in it to her back. "What's the Antebellum?"

"A boat." She took a few more steps toward the eastern shore. "Come see."

We picked up our things and followed. Peridot and Shaun led the way, walking side by side with Dogmeat at their heels.

"I wouldn't be too disappointed about the train," Felina offered. "The only thing in any of those railcars was cigarettes."

"I know."

Felina looked over at me and then back at the little girl in front of us. "You were on a cigarette run?"

"I volunteeyahd," she said, patting the side of the frayed scarf tied around her waist. When she moved her hand away, I noticed a knife sheath hanging in the folds of her skirt layers.

I smirked at Felina.

She was still eyeballing Peridot. "How old are you?"

"Old enough."


	19. A Sailboat in the Moonlight

As we neared the top of a hill around a river bend, a bridge with two lighted humps spanning from one bank to the other came into view. At the hill's peak, we were finally able to see a long, three-story riverboat with ornate, wooden rails around every floor, alit with string lanterns. I could hear live music with a prominent beat coming up the banks from it.

"Deyah she is," Peridot said, waving to the riverboat. "Since I like ya'll's son so much," she turned to face us, "ya'll are welcome to stay wit' us on da Antebellum tonight."

I was finally able to get a good look at her in all the lights reflecting off the water. She was a ghoul –

A little pre-pubescent, knife-wielding ghoul girl with pale green eyes, dark dreadlocks, layers of colorful tattered skirts, and strings of bird bones and beads hanging down her flat chest.

I smiled to myself as I noticed Shaun ogling her amorously in the romantic lighting. I only found it further amusing when Dogmeat nudged at his hand for the attention he wasn't getting. My little Casanova had a crush on an adorable little ghoul girl. It warmed my heart. "Thanks, Peridot," I told her. "You've been a tremendous help."

She flopped a hand dismissively in front of her. "T'ink nuddin' of it."

She took us on the boat where a party was roaring. People – mostly ghouls – were drinking, dancing, playing cards. A large live band that incorporated a violin, a horn section, and a mandolin was playing countryish music that I was unfamiliar with. "What are you guys celebrating?" I asked.

"Dis? It's jus' like dis e'rynight. Dis da Antebellum, bwah. Come see." She took us toward the back of the boat, passing by ongoing games of blackjack and poker on felt top tables and a row of slot machines. At the very rear, she led us up some spiral stairs to the top deck overlooking the cylindrical paddles. There were two female ghouls and two male ghouls already sitting around a table there, playing cards with piles of caps spread around them.

"You play bourre?" Peridot asked us.

I readily took a seat at the table while one of the guys passed me a bottle of bourbon. "I'm a fast learner," I told them, making myself at home.

The ghoul with a green bandana tied over his wild black hair, dressed in loose layers similar to Peridot's, held a hand out. "Whaddya got for me, Peri?"

She tossed him a pack of cigarettes. "Make 'em last, tata." She tossed a pack to everyone at the table. "I had a bit of an accident."

Everyone looked up at her.

"Da train is in da rivah and da next don't come fo two mo days. 201's tried to jack it while I was inside. Dis bwah heeyah," he motioned to Shaun, "helped me take dem out, but da canaille bastoids cut da brakes while it was already rollin'"

The ghoul in the cowboy hat and jeans tamped his pack of cigarettes with a half frown. "Figures."

"His name Shaun. Dis his ma and ta, Felina and Hancock, and da dog is Dogmeat."

The guys mumbled hey to us.

"Dis me tata, Eschu," she said completing the introductions. "Dis heeyah George from da radio station. In red ya got Courtenay, and purple is Claudette. Dey own da Antebellum."

The two female ghouls were dressed in identically-styled, floor-length dresses that manufactured cleavage for them, adorned with ruffles on the off-shoulder sleeves and the skirts. Both wore bonnets over their long, perfectly curled, cornsilk blonde hair. The curls were impressive enough, but judging by the length of their coifs, I'd wager it wasn't their real hair. The only discernable difference between the two of them was one was dressed in lavender and the other in wine red. They stood and made a little curtsey at us in perfect unison.

"Dey're twins, so you can count on dem always wearin' dey colors like dat to tell dem apart." She turned back to the twins, pointing to us. "I told 'em dey can stay heeyah tonight."

They looked at each other and back at me.

"Hancock, is it?" Claudette asked.

"Yeah."

They both tittered politely and Courtenay picked up where her sister left off. "How very _progressive_ of you, courting a _human_." They tittered again.

"Uh, yeah," I agreed awkwardly.

Their words had an air of propriety and breathy, drawn out vowels. "Ya'll must not be from 'round heeyah."

"No, we're from the Commonwealth."

They came closer, almost touching me.

The one in red made a face at me. "Which one?"

"Which one what?"

"Which Commonwealth?"

I didn't realize there were others.

"Boston, querido," Felina offered.

I nodded definitively. "We're from Boston."

The twins spoke one after another in the same train of thought. "He _is_ a handsome specimen…" – "…I could just _eat_ him up!"

I cringed. "I'm flattered, ladies, but, my wife –"

The twins erupted in another shared giggle. "Bless your heart…" – "…Someone's too big for their britches!" The ghoul in purple pinched my cheek. "We don't mean nuthin' by it, sugar…" – "…Southerners are just really _friendly_."

They closed in on Felina, one on each side of her.

"Felina?" Claudette began. "Like a feline?"

Courtenay jumped in, "She does seem to have some feline qualities…"

Felina wore a slight grimace. "I don't much care for cats."

"That's a shame," Courtenay remarked as Claudette bent down to the floor making a kissing sound.

A gray-striped tabby ran out from under the table and jumped into her arms. She stood up, petting the cat as she held it. She looked over at Shaun. "And this is ya'll's son?"

"Yes," she answered rigidly as though she was being interrogated.

Claudette leaned close to my wife's bulging belly with the cat between them. "How?"

"Excuse me?" Felina raised an eyebrow, eyeballing the cat.

Courtenay smirked. " _How_ did ya'll manage that? A son and one in the oven?"

Claudette released the cat on the boat's rail. "Is he a new ghoul?"

"You could say that."

The twins exchanged a glance. "That explains that."

I could tell Felina was getting uncomfortable, but I had been catching the brunt of this line of questioning up until now. She was lucky they figured things out on their own.

"Shaun gon' stay in me room tonight." Peridot grabbed his hand. "I'm gon show da bwah 'round da boat now."

"Goodnight," he said with a silly grin as they took off.

"Have a seat," Courtenay said to Felina as she returned to her chair.

"Oh, that's alright. I'm not going to play…"

Claudette took her seat beside Courtenay and pulled the chair next to her out. "You don't _have_ to play to sit, Menew."

"Hush, Claudette! If the girl doesn't want to sit, she can just stand." Courtenay looked over at Felina. "If that's what you _want_. The game has already started anyhow."

Felina looked at me pleadingly, but I had bought in by then and was dealt my cards. She unstrapped her guitar case and hesitantly sat down.

"So," Courtenay began, lighting one of her new cigarettes. "What brings ya'll to Kudzu Bluff?"

"We're just passing through on our way west," Felina answered.

The twins exchanged a half smile. "Ya'll shoulda got heeyah a couple days soonah," Courtenay told her.

Claudette lit herself a cigarette as well. "The storm took out all three of the Old Bridges…"

"…Two of them were railroad bridges…"

"…But all three of them were side by side…"

Courtenay interjected, "Claudette and I have been floatin' up and down this rivah for over 200 years…"

"…and tornados this time of year ain't that uncommon…"

"…but we ain't nevah seen a storm hit downtown like that."

Claudette got back to her point. "The only other bridge within 100 miles north of here is the M Bridge, and the 201's ain't gonna let ya'll cross, Menew. Not without extorting the shit outta ya."

"What about south?"

The ghoul twins roared with laughter.

Courtenay blew a smoke ring. "A smoothskin menew like you can't survive any further south than where you currently are."

"Don't rush judgement on me, fresa. I can handle myself."

I cringed when I heard her pull the Spanish out on her, trying to keep my eyes on the game.

Courtenay glared at my wife. "What's a fresa?"

She returned the glare. "What's a menew?"

"A Cajun term of endearment, hon. And a fresa?"

"A _Mexican_ term of endearment."

Courtenay leaned back in her chair. "Touché."

Claudette picked the conversation back up. "All the plants south of here came from some radioactive G.E.C.K in Florida.…"

Her sister jumped in. "…which also means radioactive rain and storms…"

"…It's completely uninhabitable by humans…"

"…which is why you don't see too many of them around here…"

"…Only reason this city is alright is because the kudzu that took over completely choked out any other vegetation from spreading any further nawth."

Felina's brow furrowed. "Well, that is unfortunate, but… this is a boat. Couldn't you float us across?"

The twins tittered to each other. Courtenay stretched her arm across the table and placed her hand on Felina's. "No, Menew. We burned our motor out running from the tornado. The Antebellum ain't going anywhere until we get that fixed..."

"…The river's too high and the current's too strong from all the rain to go out without the motor…"

"…Shouldn't take too long…"

"…If ya'll're still around in a few days when we get running again, I suppose we could take you then."

Felina carefully pulled her hand out from under Courtenay's. "That would be great, thanks."

George came to her rescue from the twins, eyeballing her guitar case. "Can you play that?" he asked, giving it a nod.

"A little. Before it broke." She pulled the case beside her and popped the latches on the side and propped it open for him to take a look.

I leaned over and snuck a peek at the damage with George. It was still in one piece, and I didn't see any holes besides the one it was supposed to have in the middle. Other than needing the strings tightened, it looked fine to me, but what do I know about guitars?

George tipped his hat up with his index finger and leaned a little closer. "May I?"

"Sure."

He picked up the instrument and examined it. "You could reattach that bridge with a couple screws and it should still play just fine."

"That won't compromise the sound?"

"Naw. However," he turned it over and pointed at the neck. "This fracture here may be a problem. This neck probably won't last. I'd replace it altogether if I were you."

"I… have no idea how to do that. I didn't know you could."

"Sure you can. I'd do it for you, but all my things are at the studio."

She visibly perked up. "I'll pay whatever you want if you could do that for me."

"If you come by the studio tomorrow, I'll fix you up."

After a few more hands, the twins cleaned me out, and I didn't buy back in. Wasn't really my game anyway. George passed me the bourbon bottle again. I took a final swig and excused myself.

Courtenay stood up and her sister followed. "We could show ya'll to your room now, if you like." They took us down a floor and brought us to an outer room by the railing. I tried to offer them some caps in exchange for the lodging, but they refused.

"We got plenty ah your caps from the game, hoss." That was Courtenay, I think. "There's an intercom button by the door if ya'll need anything…"

"…We'll see ya'll in the morning." And that was Claudette, possibly.

Once they left and Felina and I had set our stuff down, I went back outside. Going to the railing, I lit a cigarette and looked out over the water. There was a light breeze blowing across the river. The M Bridge was just north of us, and the perfectly symmetrical, wavering reflection of its lights was actually picturesque. Truth be told, I was really enjoying the atmosphere set by the view and the muffled music from below our deck.

Halfway through my cigarette, Felina came up beside me and I thumped the square into the river.

"You didn't have to do that," she said, leaning on me. "I wasn't trying to sneak some smoke."

I put my arm around her. "Of course you weren't, love."

She moved in front of me and pulled my other arm around her, too. "I guess we're going to be here for at least a few days."

"This place ain't so bad. It's even kinda warm. You like it warm, don't cha, my little desert rose?"

"Yeah, but not humid. The desert is a dry heat." She sighed. "We need to find somewhere else to stay tomorrow night."

"Why? I think it's kinda nice being on the river."

"I don't want to be any more in debt to those twins. They rub me the wrong way."

"Fair enough."

As we stood there by the rail, staring out into the dark, a molerat-sized ball of gold light blinked over the water. I looked down at Felina with surprise. "Did you see that, too?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah."

We saw it again, closer this time. The next time it blinked, another similar flash appeared beyond it as well. Every time it flashed, it was closer to us. I withdrew one of my arms from Felina, and my hand instinctively started hovering by my holster.

Off to our left, I heard the familiar buzzing of a bloodbug approaching. Having not seen one all night, I had forgotten all about them until then. Before I had my shotgun fully drawn, the blinking lantern swooped past us with a flapping sound. Up close, we could see it was some kind of large black and red striped beetle, the light coming from its abdomen. It intercepted the bloodbug that was coming toward us midair and devoured it like it was nothing, landing on a rail post beside us.

Felina and I just stared at it in shock.

"I guess we know why there aren't any bloodbugs around here," I remarked.

It fanned its wings harmlessly a couple times before flying away. Our eyes followed its trail of light back out into the darkness where the numbers of the bioluminescent bugs were steady growing, twinkling randomly over the water like stand-ins for the absent stars on the cloudy night. The band below us started a new song:

 

" _A chance to sail away_  
_To Sweetheart Bay_  
_Beneath the stars that shine_  
_A chance to drift_  
_For you to lift_  
_Your tender lips to mine_  
_Some things dear_  
_That I long for are few_  
_Just give me a sailboat_  
_In the moonlight and you_ "

 

Felina nuzzled deeper into me and I held her tightly as we took in the bedtime show.


	20. The Dirty Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm getting too weird for you guys, ya gotta tell me. I can't tell if this stuff is entertaining, or if I'm just a little off my rocker

After breakfast with the twins, Felina was eager for us to leave the Antebellum. She had plans for us to find an inn and then for us to go to the studio to get her guitar fixed. Shaun was intent on hanging out with Peridot and didn't want to go with us.

"You two had plenty of time together last night, hijo, and you can see her again later. We're going to be here a few days."

"You mean only a few days," he retorted sharply.

Peridot was equally enthusiastic about her new companion. "Mais, we can meet you at da studio. He'll be safe wit' me." Peridot eventually convinced her to allow it, and she gave us directions to a hotel and the studio.

The hotel was a large downtown building with an extravagant lobby to rival the interior of Tenpenny Tower. We prepaid in advance for several days there, which was supposed to be cheaper than paying as we go, but it still seemed awfully high to me. I audibly groaned as I handed the caps over to the front desk clerk.

Felina shook her head at me as we rode the elevator up.

I eyeballed her back. "What?"

"We may be behind schedule, but we're ahead on caps, and you're over here bellyaching over splurging on this room."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. Besides, did you see the lobby? I'm sure it's worth it."

We unlocked the door, and with just one quick look, I was extremely disappointed in the size of the room we would be sharing with Shaun. It was small, and the two beds were, too. The only other furniture it offered was a writing desk, which really just detracted from the already limited space. If Felina wasn't being so testy, we could have stayed on the Antebellum and would have had a room entirely to ourselves. Alternatively, I would have been happier squatting in any number of empty buildings we had passed along the way than paying those rates.

Felina didn't admit defeat. Instead, she walked to the window and spread the drapes open. "It has a great view," she remarked.

The elevated sight of the river and M Bridge hardly made up for anything. I checked the bathroom real quick. No shower. "Maybe it's not too late to get our caps back," I replied as I tested the bed.

She turned away from the window with her hands on her hips. "Why would we do that?"

"Because, it's like the twins said, we can't use that bridge without being extorted, but that's not too far off from what I would call what this hotel has done to us." I stretched across the mattress and folded my arms behind my head. "We may even come out better if we just go pay those 201 assholes to let us cross."

She frowned. "Don't get too comfy, smart ass. We got to go get my guitar fixed."

I scooted to the side a bit. "What's your hurry?" I asked, patting the space beside me.

"Not right now, querido. Shaun and Peridot will be waiting on us."

"There's probably not going to be a later, love… unless you let Shaun stay with Peridot again, tonight."

"No way. It's too far, we're in a strange city, and we don't really know any of these people all that well."

I sighed as I sat up. "Alright."

We continued on to Sun Studios. Felina tried tuning into George's radio station again, but it was silent. She left it on anyway, and eventually we heard some shuffling in the sound studio. After a few moments, someone began to speak.

"Good Morning, Kudzu Bluff! How 'bout this weather we've been having lately, huh? Ya'll musta made your god real mad atcha." Some snickering was had away from the microphone. "Well, here's some gospel for ya'll. This song is for all of you that survived…"

"I don't think that's George," I remarked.

The sound of more than one voice laughing was followed by the familiar opening strings of Skeeter Davis's End of the World being played live on acoustic guitar, but when the lyrics were supposed to come in, a female voice started ad-libbing:

 

" _Why is your mom on the corner?_

_Why is her butt always sore?_

_Don't she know it's the end of the world_

_And she don't have to keep being a whore…_ "

 

The laughter roared up again, and Felina quickly turned it off. "Dios mio."

We wandered around the tall, mostly empty – but still standing – ivy-covered buildings down by the river, and it started to become apparent after a while that we were lost.

Felina was scowling. "If Peridot was so intent with being around my son today, we should have made her come with us." She was furiously pressing buttons on her pip-boy. "This thing is fucking useless!"

"It's fine, love. Do you have the atlas with you? Maybe the studio is on there."

"No! I left it in the room." She flung her encumbered arm to her side, tired of looking at the map. "I wouldn't be surprised if that conniving little girl gave us wrong directions on purpose just so they could have more time together."

"Come on, that ain't fair of ya. It's way more probable that we just misheard her. I mean, it ain't just me, right? She's kinda hard to understand, ain't she?"

Felina half-smiled. "No, it's not just you."

Just then, we heard the sound of two dogs growling and fighting followed by some shouts. One of the dogs yelped, and Felina shot me a look. "That wasn't Dogmeat, was it?"

"I don't know." We took off running in that direction. We turned the corner to an alleyway and found a group of people crowded at the end. They were dressed in the minimalistic leathers and metal characteristic of raiders and were circled around the two dogs we heard, pumping fists and egging them on. The dogs weren't the kinds of mangy-looking mongrels we would normally see roaming wild. They were well-groomed, stocky, muscular things with boxy muzzles and studded collars, and they were tearing at each other viciously.

Felina's eyes went wide. "What the fuck?!" She ran down to the crowd and pushed her way in.

I rushed to catch her and pull her away just as she was about to reach between the two dogs. "Stay back, Felina!"

The dominant dog ripped the ear off the other, and Felina started crying. "Stop this right now!" she yelled to the spectators.

She was being mostly ignored, but one tan guy with a blood red mohawk combed to the front and the edges curved up like horns acknowledged her cries. "Can't do it. I've got a lot of caps riding, here."

"How much?" she cried with a wavering voice.

"200."

She started digging in her bag. "Here!" She handed him more than 200 caps.

He hesitantly took the caps from her and then gazed over at the two dogs. After another moment of the losing dog getting ripped at, he called out to the stronger one, "Heel, Sandy!"

The dog instantly obeyed, going to his owner's feet. He attached a leash to her collar.

The owner of the losing dog, looking pissed off and butt hurt, put the leash on his limp pet and pulled it down the alley while it whimpered and shook, a trail of blood dripping and smearing behind its dragging paws. "Fuck you, Chad!" he yelled back at him once he was almost around the corner. "I ain't payin'!"

While there were more exchanges of caps among the crowd, I turned to Felina. "What the fuck were you thinking, Felina?! You can't get between two dogs fighting like that!"

"They were going to kill each other!"

"Yeah, that sucks, but we kill all the time out in the wastes. Why are you picking now to be an animal sympathizer?"

"Those aren't wild animals, John! Those are pets! This shit isn't right…"

"I agree, love, but it ain't worth you getting hurt over." I grabbed her hands. "You ain't invincible, and you're carrying a baby. You can't do shit like that."

That guy, Chad, came over to her and put a hand on her back. "Hey, you alright?"

She yanked her palms out of mine to shove him forcibly. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Hey, I called her off! Chill out. This ain't even a thing I normally do. I was settling a dispute with that guy. The dogs fighting was better than us killing each other."

She glared at him. "Whatever, pendejo. Vales verga."

"¡A la verga! ¿Hablas español?"

She sniffled and looked at him warily. "Si."

And just like that, they were conversing with each other in a rapid blur of the foreign language while I stood by, dumbfounded. I let them go on for a few minutes before I lost my patience. "Hate to interrupt, but do you know where Sun Studios is?"

"Sure, boss. Ya'll ain't far. I'll show you."

He led us down the end of the alley to the street where the crowd had filtered to. It was still kinda early in the day, but there was already a party vibe among the people mingling in front of colorful bar signage on well-preserved, old world style brick buildings, and I could smell meat being grilled. As we got further down the street, I saw a fat, two-headed animal with tusks and a short snout being roasted over an open flame.

Felina noticed it, too, and started speaking to him again in Spanish.

"Felina…love…"

She looked at me and abruptly stopped her foreign jabbering. "Sorry, querido." She turned back to Chad. "When will you guys be eating?"

"A razorback that size is gonna take hours. Probably not til after sundown. The band will be playing before then."

"I can't wait!" She glanced over at me again. "You don't mind, do you?"

"What?"

"If we come back to Beale Street tonight for the barbecue."

"This place? If that's what you want, love."

She turned back to her new friend. "Does everyone around here speak Spanish?"

"No, but there are others, besides me." He started pointing to people as we walked past them. "Lino, Isa, Hunter…and I don't see Yuki or Glenna, but I'm sure they'll be here, tonight." He stopped once we made it to a crossing street. "Just keep going straight for about another mile and take a left at Myrtle. It will be the next street over."

She smiled. "Thanks, Chad. Hasta luego."

We didn't speak until we were a couple blocks down. "I don't get it," I began. "You wanted to kill that guy until he started talking in Spanish to you."

"It's complicated, but he explained the situation to me. He's an alright guy."

"If you say so." Before long, there were no more tall buildings, and we were in front of a narrow, two-story brick building with a guitar-shaped sign on the front. "This it?"

Felina pointed to a makeshift radio tower on the roof. "Surely."

We made our way to the door, and I tried to turn the knob, but it was stuck. I pushed on it, but it wasn't budging.

Felina glared at me like I was doing it on purpose. "Step aside," she said, already shoving me out of the way. She jiggled and pushed on the door, and when it didn't open for her either, she knocked, loudly and angrily.

"Who is it?" A male voice called playfully from the other side.

"Let us in," my wife demanded. "I'm here to see George."

"He's busy."

"He's expecting me."

"He can't come out and play right now. Goodbye."

She began pounding on the wood. "Open this damn door!"

After a moment, the door creaked open a crack. I stepped in front of her and gently pushed the door open. A hand grabbed me and pulled me inside. Before I knew what was happening, I had a pistol pointed at me. I reluctantly showed my hands, lifting them level with my chest.

The man holding the gun was a dark-skinned fella dressed in baggy clothes with a ball cap on. He sneered at me, showing his teeth that were covered in gold with the word "sinner" spelled across them in diamonds. "Where's the girl?" he asked, his eyes darting past me out the door.

Felina chose that moment to enter, her own pistol drawn. "Drop your gun," she commanded the assailant.

"Nope," he asserted, snatching Esteban out of her hands and kicking the door shut behind her, still pointing the pistol at both of us. He looked down at her bulging belly. "Ya'll shoulda just left, like I said."

"What's going on here?" I asked.

"Just a little change in programming." He waved toward a petite, smoothskin woman with braids in the sound booth playing guitar. "So ya'll here to see George?" He started leading us at gun point to another room. George was bound and gagged in the corner. "They you go. Have a seat," he said, waving us toward the same corner.

We sat down on the floor next to the dj. His eyes were wide with fright. "Hey, George," I greeted him, deadpan. He moaned something muffled through the rag in his mouth.

Our captor leaned back on a soundboard behind him. "I'm all outta rope, so ya'll are just gonna have to be on your best behavior, a'ight.?" He adjusted some sliders on the soundboard, and we were able to hear the girl. She was playing a bluesy riff and singing:

 

" _…I got somethin' between my legs_

_That'll make a dead man come_

_Baby won't you shave 'em dry_

_Want you to grind me baby_

_Grind me until I cry_

_I fucked all night_

_And the night before, baby_

_And I feel like I wanna fuck some more_

_Oh, grind me honey_

_Shave me dry…_ "

 

I smiled. "It has a beat and you can dance to it. 9/10."

He turned to look at me. "You like that? My baby's got talent."

Felina nodded. "She does, actually. She can play and sing well, buuut…"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "But what?"

"Those lyrics aren't exactly radio friendly. And I've got a pretty bad mouth on me."

"She does," I vouched for her.

"Yeah, that's what George said. But Lucille Bogan is a legit musician, man. Her shit's tight."

"Is that your girl?" I asked.

"No, her name is Fray. Lucille Bogan is the prewar artist that originally did the song she's singing. My baby can perform, but she don't write music too good."

"Yeah, I think I caught some of that on the radio earlier…"

Felina snorted. "I know that feeling. So what's the plan from here? Are you going to let George go after she's done performing? Because he's supposed to fix my guitar for me." She patted her guitar case. "You know how it is for us musicians," she said, trying to appeal to his artistic sensibilities.

Clever girl.

"Naw. I ain't lettin' him go until he agrees to let Fray have her own program. Performing is in her blood and she deserves to be heard."

"I don't think her style is a good fit for George's programming," she casually remarked. I just looked at her like she was crazy.

"Yeah, that's what he told us, and now he's tied up. Got something else to say, smart mouth?" He started waving his gun around again. "I ain't finna hurt no pregnant bitch, but I ain't gon' let you talk shit nether."

"Well, let's just walk through this logically," she replied coolly. "She's obviously talented. How about performing live somewhere." She looked over at me. "You know, like Magnolia does."

The guy looked confused. "Who's Magnolia?"

She continued thinking out loud. "What about Beale Street?"

"That fucking janky-ass party street? You must got me fucked up…"

"Well, I'm not from around here, but her style seems like a better fit there. I've heard George's station before, and I don't think she's going to develop much of a fan base here."

"I dunno…"

"I know a guy there. I could talk to him for you."

Felina's argument was kinda compelling. I pulled out a couple inhalers. "Why don't you ask Fray what she thinks?" I took a hit of jet and offered one to our captor, trying to help the situation in some way.

He accepted it and started to loosen up some. "Ya'll're a'ight. Lemme go holla at my girl."

After much deliberating, he untied George. George seemed pretty rattled from the whole ordeal, but he rolled with it. After he started up his regular programming, he and Felina went to another room to work on her guitar, leaving me with Fray and her boyfriend.

Fray seemed like a pleasant girl. "Sorry 'bout Rae Rae giving you a hard time. He's really supportive of my music."

I half-smiled. "Yeah, I can tell he cares a lot."

While I was entertaining them, Shaun and Peridot finally walked in. "Took you guys long enough," I remarked.

Felina eventually emerged from the back of the studio with George, holding up her acoustic guitar and grinning widely.

"All better?" I asked.

"Yep! The bridge is secured and I got a new neck and strings."

I smiled. "I'm happy for ya, love."

It started getting close to dusk, so we left the studio with Fray and Rae Rae following the four of us and Dogmeat back to Beale Street. You could smell the delicious meat and hear the band playing before we even made it to crowd.

Once there, Felina found Chad and spoke to him about Fray. Chad had a few words with the band, and before long, she was taking the stage:

 

" _I got a man I love_

_I got a man I like_

_Every time I fuck them mens_

_I give 'em the doggone claps_

_Aw, baby_

_Give 'em the doggone clap_

_But that's the kind of pussay that they really like…_ "

 

Felina cringed, but the crowd ate it up.

I thought the song was amusing. I was standing beside Rae Rae near the front of the crowd, and he was standing smugly with his arms crossed, nodding his head to Fray's performance. Another guy watching nearby asked him, "Who is that?"

"Fray. She doin' some Lucille Bogan," Rae Rae replied with a straight face.

"It's good."

He just kept nodding casually to the music. "I know."

As the sunlight dwindled, all the neon signs and lanterns strung across the street started to light up in a colorful display. We sat at a picnic table with Chad's friends who were all balls-to-the-wall shit-faced off of a seemingly endless supply of beer. When he brought a tray of pulled meat, setting it down in the center, they all dug in, making sandwiches out of it and slathering it in reddish-brown sauce from mason jars. I followed suit and was pleased with the results. Felina ate her weight in food and chatted incessantly in Spanish with the locals.

As we sat around with our new acquaintances, it got darker, and the glowing beetles started to come out again, further illuminating the street.

"There they are again!" Felina observed with delight.

Peridot grinned. "You like da radzelles?" she asked Felina.

"Yeah. We didn't have anything like these back in the Commonwealth."

She dug around in her bag for a minute and pulled out a necklace with the same gold glow to its pendant. "Dat what dis made from." She held it out to Felina. "You can have dis, if you want. To remind you of Kudzu Bluff."

Felina put it on immediately. "Thank you, Peridot."

"It's nuddin'."

Chad left for more beer. When he came back, he slid onto the end of our bench next to Felina, squeezing the rest of us on it in closer. I observed quietly as they had an apparently amusing conversation that I couldn't understand. I didn't need to know the words to catch the vibe of what he was thinking. He was obviously attracted to her. It was all in his body language. Felina seemed oblivious to it, so I didn't say anything. I just kept my eye on him closely.

Once Felina was tired, we started heading back to the room. Peridot walked all the way to the hotel with us, giving Shaun a hug before parting ways.

"I like this place," he remarked as we walked to the door.

"Yeah." Felina looked down at her new necklace. "I don't mind spending a few days here at all."


	21. Southwest Voodoo

After another day of suffering though Chad's flirty nature with my wife on Beale Street, I had had my fill. When we weren't on the party street, he was all she talked about. I get that she hadn't had someone she could practice her Spanish on in a long time, but I was getting uncomfortable with how close they were getting. It was in direct proportion to how distant she was getting with me, and it was happening fast. It goes without saying what that implies.

I vetoed going back the following day, but Felina was not being very understanding. She cried and argued with me over it back in the room and all the way to the Antebellum. She was being irrationally hostile.

She sat, silently fuming as I played cards on board the boat. She childishly made faces behind the twins' backs whenever they weren't looking. She would hiss and shoo at the cat, but it kept trying to get in her lap, undeterred by all her swatting and swearing at it.

My patience was worn thin when she pulled me aside and suggested leaving me there to go to Beale Street without me.

"Doesn't this just feel like arbitrary bullshit to you?" I asked, trying to call attention to how ridiculous all the fighting was.

"Yes! Yes, it does! I don't want to hang out here on this boat with those _fresas_! Why does it matter to you if I do something without you, Hancock?"

There it was again. I don't even think she realized she was doing it, but all the "queridos" and "amors" and even my first name were gone. Like we were strangers.

She was still rambling in my silence. "Don't we spend enough time together? It's like we never get a damn break from each other."

"Is that really what this is about, Felina? I understand if you want some time to yourself, but I don't want you spending it with those dog-fighting, party boy hoodlums!"

"Why?" She was getting visibly fired-up. "Don't you trust me?"

"I don't trust _them_! That guy with the ridiculous hair –"

"Who, Chad?"

"Yes. That asshole! I especially don't trust him." I glanced across the deck to see if Shaun was still watching us, but Peridot had him by the hand, leading him elsewhere. I was glad he didn't have to witness this, but with him gone, things were only going to get more heated.

Felina got derisive. "Are you jealous?"

"Fucking– Why the hell would I be jealous of _him_?!"

She crossed her arms. "You seem jealous, is all."

"You really want some time alone, Felina? I'll go back to the room and you can stay here or do whatever the fuck you want, as long as it doesn't involve that guy. He's obviously trying to get in your pants, and your willingness to tolerate that makes it seem like you wouldn't mind. I can't fucking allow it."

"Allow it?! You don't _control_ me, Hancock! I'm not your fucking slave!"

"No, you're my wife, and that shit doesn't exactly look good."

"Doesn't _look_ good?" She spread her arms out. "Who are you trying to impress here?" She started in with the tears again. "You know what? Forget it. You stay here, _I'll_ go back to the room. Unlike you, I'm not trying to keep you under lock and key!" She stomped off down the boat ramp.

My hand instinctively started going for my chems, but I stopped myself. I'd been using so damn much those past few days, I was in danger of building a new fucking tolerance. I reached for a cigarette instead and started heading back towards the card table. _I know why Felina became a lawyer. That broad loves to argue._

The twins needed to hurry up and fix that boat. I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of that place

…

* * *

…

While mom and dad were arguing, Peridot took my hand and led me around a corner. "You don' need to watch dat. Let's go do somet'in' else."

She led me north of the boat, following the river to the bridge that wasn't broken. Dogmeat came along, too, of course, without me having to tell him.

"Dat dere da M Bridge," she said, pointing above us. "If it weren't for da 201's, you could go dat way."

"What are the 201's?"

"Just a buncha soft-skinned thugs. Dey usually give us a buncha trouble. But right now, I'm glad to have 'em."

"Why is that?"

"'Cause, bwah." She took my hand and led me down the banks under the bridge. When we stopped by the river edge, she pulled me down onto my butt onto the vine-covered ground and plopped down beside me. Dogmeat made a circle before lying down next to us.

"Because what?"

"If it weren't for dem blocking yo way, you'd be leavin' me already."

I didn't really know how to respond to that. I looked out over the river. "What's that point sticking out over there?"

"Dat pyramid? Dat da vault da original 201's came from. It used to be much biggah but it sank in da rivah."

"That's a vault?" My interest was piqued.

"Weh. Why, you wanna see it?"

"Sorta. How do you get in?"

"I'll show you. Come see." She took off running and I struggled to get to my feet on the slope, but I eventually made it. "Come _on_ , bwah! Quit foolin' 'round!"

Dogmeat and I ran after her. She took us further down the bank to a large concrete drain. "Dis heeyah how dey got out in da foist place."

"Who?"

"Da 201's ancestors. Dey wuh prisoners heeyah a long time ago."

"Yeah, I have a pretty good idea of how these vaults work," I replied as she led us into the darkness.

All around us it was damp and musty with a shallow channel of rushing water at our feet, and the sound of it running and dripping could be heard constantly. Further in, there was almost no visible light, and when we got to a junction, she pulled out a flip lighter. At first I figured it was for a source of light, but then she also pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

I tried to hide my surprise. "You smoke?"

"Weh, bwah." She pulled another one out and handed it to me. "Heeyah."

I hesitantly took it from her and she held the lighter up to my face for me, leaving the flame going after I had caught fire to the end. I drew off it and blew a small puff out of my mouth.

She chuckled. "You don't _smoke_! Yo' not even inhalin'!"

I sucked back on it again, harder. This time, I started coughing like crazy and got light-headed.

She just laughed again. "You ain' godda impress me, bwah! You can put dat out if you want."

Just to spite her, I didn't. She held the lighter up so we could see, and we continued on. She made several turns, and Dogmeat and I just followed.

"Watch fo molerats," she warned us as we continued. A dim light was sparkling in the water up ahead. Eventually, we made it to a crumbled hole in the concrete where the flickering light was coming from. "Dis it." She closed her lighter.

I climbed over the debris after her. "So do you call them 201's because this is vault 201?" I asked as we wandered through the halls of barred cells.

"No, dis heeyah Vault t'oity t'ree."

"So why are they the 201's?"

"Remember how I told you dey wuh inmates?"

"You said they were prisoners."

"Same t'in'. 201 was what dey call da prison befo da war. When da inmates escaped, dey kept da label 'cause dey t'ought it made 'em sound hadah."

"So this was the prison?"

"No, dis da vault. You slow or somet'in'?"

I think if anyone else had said that to me, I would have been mad. It was just cute when she said it. "So where's all the vault stuff? This just looks like a prison."

"We gettin' deyah. Cool yo jets, bwah."

I had already been through some pretty crazy places with mom and dad, but this was the first time I had done something like this without them. It was liberating and kinda scary at the same time. After snaking through the cells, we got to some stairs down to some more polished looking tunnels, but there was about a foot of water on the floor. "I'm really surprised."

"At what?"

"That this place isn't more flooded."

"Da sleepin' quoitahs ah completely flooded. Dis da lowest we can go." She put her hands out to her sides. "So, heeyah we ah. What do now?"

"Well," I began as I peered around us. "I was kinda hoping to find a pip-boy."

"One ah dose computer t'in's like yo ma has?"

"Yeah. They come from vaults."

"'A'ight den. Wanna split up?"

That seemed like a terrible idea, but I didn't want to seem like a wuss. "Alright."

I followed the signs to the overseer's office and looked around there. When I didn't see one, I sat down at the computer. I had to crack the password to use it, but it wasn't hard. I knew there had to be some kind of unethical social experiment that took place there. So far, I hadn't heard of a vault that didn't have one. I read through the instructions and logs on the computer anyway, even though I knew it was going to be a bummer:

 

_CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL_

_OVERSEER EYES ONLY | VIOLATION VTP-01011_

_Vault 33 is designed to test a number of hypotheses about intergroup relations and conflict. If two in-groups thus formed are brought into functional relationship under conditions of competition and group frustration, attitude and appropriate hostile actions in relation to the out-group and its members will arise and will be standardized and shared in varying degrees by group members_

_North and South Wings: The individual inmates' predetermined sections of incarceration have been selected by the Vault-Tec researchers with efforts being made to balance the physical, mental, and social talents of the groups. Reassignment is not authorized under any circumstances._

_Your staff is considered expendable. Anyone who deviates from the directive or attempts to evacuate prematurely can be transferred to the inmate populace if appropriate._

 

_ALL-CLEAR MESSAGE_

_Upon receiving the all-clear message, staff may leave the vault in their personal time, but must still report for their regularly scheduled shifts and continue behaving in accordance with the directive in order to remain in Vault-Tec's employ. The inmates are actual inmates from the criminal justice system and must remain for the duration of their sentences._

 

_OVERSEER'S LOG_

_June 10, 2078_

_The superordinate goal to be introduced this week pertains to drinking-water at a time when both groups face the prospect of thirst and are intended to become progressively thirstier. I don't know what this is supposed to prove, but this probably would have been more humane if the air conditioner didn't break. We still have not been given the all-clear signal, and we lack the necessary parts to repair it._

_The ambient temperature in here is over 100 degrees, and it's only going to get hotter. Even the guards can't handle it. I don't know how much more of this we'll be able to take._

 

Peridot came in while I was still scouring the computer for information. "What it say?"

"The short version? The guards were pitting the two sides of the prison against each other."

"Why?"

"Because that's what Vault-Tec does. They fuck with people. But in the end, the inmates rebelled when the air conditioner broke in the summer. Can't say I blame them, considering what it says they were put through."

"Not da woist t'in' I ever hoid."

I stood up and walked to the round window, peering out into the depths of the submerged pyramid. It was huge! That wasn't the only thing I noticed, though. "Um, Peridot?"

"Weh?"

I pointed at the giant creatures swimming in the waters right beyond us. They were the same as the one I had blown up with the car the night the tornado came through.

She came beside me and looked out the window. "Gators. You ain't scared, ah you?"

One came right by the glass, swimming past. I swallowed the lump in my throat. "No."

She smirked and grabbed me by my collar, pulling me close. Her hair brushed against my face, and I got goosebumps. "Positive?" Her lips were a mere inch away from mine.

The room suddenly seemed too warm. "No. I'm not scared."

Her pale green eyes seemed to get brighter. "Prove it."

"How?"

She leaned in and started kissing me. My heart was racing. For a brief second, my eyes widened as I darted them beside us out the window, but a moment later, I forgot all about the gators and started kissing her back. My hands automatically went around her waist. As soon as they touched her, she parted her lips and stuck her tongue in my mouth. I had never done anything like that before, so I just started mimicking what she did with hers, and pretty soon, it felt natural. It was amazing.

We were still locked together like that when Dogmeat started growling beside me. I shooed at him with my hand and brought it back around Peridot's waist, but he wouldn't stop. She suddenly pulled away with a gasp, looking past me. I looked over my shoulder, and one of the gators was slinking down the hallway past the door. Dogmeat took off after it.

"No, don't!" I drew my laser rifle and ran after him.

In the hall, Dogmeat was clamped down on the gator's tail, which it was thrashing about, flinging him repeatedly into the walls. I carefully aimed my laser rifle, trying to make sure I didn't hit Dogmeat. The thing took up almost the whole hallway. I got a couple shots off, but it only seemed to make the creature madder, and it began to flail more wildly, knocking the rifle out of my hands. My gun flung into a wall, and when it hit the ground, it slid across the floor on the other side of the beast. Dogmeat hit the opposite wall with a whimper and fell unconscious.

I dove to the ground and rolled under and past it, grabbing my rifle as I slid by. I landed on my back with my feet facing the gator, and I kept kicking myself backwards as I fired round after round at him. It didn't seem to be slowing him down at all as he kept coming closer. With one final push off, my head hit the wall at the end of the hall, hard enough to knock me silly. I was seeing double as the gator's deadly jaws widened over me.

In a flash, Peridot came from behind it in a flying somersault with her knife raised over her head. When her feet pounded down on the gator's head, she stabbed the blade through its snout with critical force, pinning it closed. "Shoot 'em now, bwah!"

I fired over and over, long past when it stopped moving. When I finally stopped hitting the trigger, I was gasping for breath. Peridot removed her knife and slid down. I was still lying on the floor when she offered me a hand up. "You okay?"

I let her pull me to my feet. "Yeah." I squeezed past the corpse to go check on my dog. He was just beginning to shake it off and get up.

While I was tending to Dogmeat, Peridot was kneeling by the creature's mouth, removing its teeth with her knife.

"What do you do with those?"

"Lotsa t'in's." She dropped a few of them into her shoulder bag and stood up. "We should get gon' befo' anymo' ah dem show up."

As if on cue, I heard one snarling in the downstairs stairwell opposite the one we needed to climb. I jumped up and started running.

We dashed up the stairs with Dogmeat in the lead, and I could hear it closing in on us. As the sounds grew dangerously close, I swear I could feel it's breath on our heels. When we got back to the floor with all the cells, I looked back and saw it was pretty much as close as I thought it was. I was already running as fast as I could, but I pushed myself even harder, grabbing Peridot's hand and holding my hat on with my other. We leapt through the hole in the wall where we had entered, and it crashed into the wall with only its perilous snout snapping at us through the opening, the rest of its muscular body too large to come through.

Even though we were in the clear by then, I kept running until we had turned a corner and it was out of sight. As soon as we did, I let her hand go and dropped to the ground, out of breath.

Peridot just laughed heartily. "Whaddya t'ink ah dat, bwah? We have fun ah what?"

"That… was… fucking close!"

"You jus' gon' sit deyah in da watah?"

"I need… a minute."

"Since you jus' sittin' deyah sucking up ayah…" She reached in her bag and pulled out a pip-boy. "Heeyah. Go 'head and fit dis to yo arm."

I was speechless as she handed it to me.

"Mais, yo _welcome_."

"No, I… Thank you, Peri!" I was smiling so hard, my face hurt.

"I'd say you oined dat," she said, returning my smile.

Peridot and I headed straight for the Antebellum once we got out of the tunnels. I was still high on the rush of everything that had happened back there. As we ran up the banks, I couldn't help but keep looking over at her when she laughed. I thought her smile was pretty, and the way her dreadlocks bounced and the light glinted off her beads only added to her beauty. I don't know how she did it, but I even admired the way she was able to go anywhere barefoot. Everything about her made me happy.

Back at the boat, ghouls were loading crates of cigarettes like the ones from the train before. We rushed passed them up the ramp. When we made it on deck, I caught sight of dad sitting at a card table on the back end of the boat. I slowed to a stop.

"What you doin', bwah?" she asked me.

"I'm going to go say hi to my dad real quick."

"Weh, den. I'll be in me room."

"I'll meet you there."

The twins made it to him before I did. They spoke to him for a moment, and he pocketed his caps from the table, rising from his chair. He gave them a nod and started heading my way. I met him halfway.

"Hey, killer." He lit a cigarette. "What have you been up to?"

I lifted my arm up. "Look, what Peridot got me!"

"She gave you a pip-boy? Where did she get that?"

"She took me to a vault and found it."

"That was pretty thoughtful." He folded his arms on the boat's railing and I joined him with Dogmeat at my feet. "So, you and Peridot spend a lot of time together, huh?"

I felt my face getting hot. "Yeah, why?"

He flashed me a smile and looked back out across the water. "You kissed her yet?"

Now my face was really hot. "Yeah."

"She's cute. I don't blame ya." He kept smiling, not looking at me. Then his smile started to fade. "You ain't gonna like this…"

I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach. "What?"

"The twins say the boat is ready to go."

The flutter grew as I mulled this information over. I knew I could talk to dad about things that wouldn't float with mom, but I was still unsure how this topic was going to go over, even with him. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"How old were you the first time you had sex?"

His brow furrowed as he took a long drag from his cigarette. "Older than you."

My eyes drew downward. "Right." I was suddenly embarrassed for even bringing it up.

He took another dramatic drag. "Now you know I pretty much let you do whatever you want, Shaun, but I gotta tell ya… don't rush that shit." He thumped his cigarette over the side of the boat. "It only complicates things."

We stood there in uncomfortable silence for what seemed like forever when he let out a heavy sigh and pushed off the railing. He pulled out another cigarette. "I'm going to go tell your mom the news about the boat."

"I, uh, I'm going to stay here for a while. I told Peridot I would meet up with her."

He turned to me with a gravely serious look. "Do synths get radiation poisoning?"

"No…"

"Good." His expression softened some and he patted me on top of my hat. "I'll see ya when you get back."

* * *

I was trying to relish every moment I had left with Peridot. Hours went by, and I should have gone home by then, but I wasn't ready to leave her, yet.

She held my hand, face up in her palm, and traced her fingers across lightly. "You have a strong connection to yo tata."

"Weeell." I was a little distracted by the touching. It sent a shiver down my spine, but in a good way. "Do you mean my biological father?"

"Yo tata ain't necessarily yo biological faddah. Mo' like yo faddah figure. You don't have a faddah."

I looked down at my palm in our laps between us. "Does it say that?"

"No, not heeyah, bwah," she said with a little chuckle. "But I know. I have a kinda extra sense, me."

"Yeah?" I didn't really believe in that sort of thing.

"Weh, bwah. I know t'ins. You don't have a muddah, neiddah."

I pulled my hand out of hers. "Why would you say that?"

"Maaais, not in da traditional sense. Yo special." She pulled the tricorn hat off my head and stroked my hair. "Yo life widdout life. You were boin outtah knowledge and longin' insteadda carnal lust."

"How… how do you know that?"

"I told you, I know t'ins." She took my hands in hers once more and leaned forward, pressing her lips to mine. She gave me a little tongue, and just as I was getting into it, she pulled away. "You and I have somet'in' in common."

"What's that?"

"You and I, bwah, we'll be like dis forevah." She started pushing me to the floor under her. "We will look like children fo centuries."

"Bullshit…"

"Weh. Yo' a machine. Da radiation don't hoit you. And you cain't grow. Dey didn't make you dat way…"

My stomach turned. It was freaky enough that she was able to tell I was a synth, but I didn't want to believe what she was saying either.

"…And I been dis way for two hundred yeeyahs. Dis ah destiny, bwah."

That was the first time I realized how old she was. It had never really crossed my mind because of the way she looked. It suddenly seemed weird to me for us to be as close as we were. When she started running her hand down to my pants, I pushed her off of me. "I'm not ready for that, Peri."

She chuckled. "How old you ah, bwah? Yo' not really twelve, ah you?"

"I am, actually."

"You have a very old soul, doh." She pursed her lips. "Mais, you have to loin sometime if we gon' be togeddah." She placed her hands at my waistband, and I pushed them away.

"Who said we are going to be together?"

She smiled. "What you scared of? You don't like me?"

I wasn't really interested in that anymore. I had something else on my mind. "…I'm not really going to be a child forever, am I?"

"You didn't know? I'm sorry I had to be da one to tell you." She sat up. "But I can help you t'rough dis. I can tell you from experience, it's hard to find true love when you look like a child. Dat's a subject area normal people don't want to touch. But now dat we found each oddah, we don't have to worry 'bout dat. We have plenty ah time togeddah, bwah."

I desperately wanted to be anywhere else at that moment. "I'm sorry, Peridot, but we don't actually have that much time together. My family and I will be leaving soon –"

"Yo family ain't gon' to da desert. Dat wasn't just a pretty necklace I gave yo ma. It has powahs."

"I don't believe in magic, Peri. I may not be as old as you, but I'm not a damn baby."

"Mais, you don't have to believe in voodoo, but know dis: da stuff dat makes da radzelles glow? It has pheromone propoities dat only effect humans. It's gon' be like Cupid hit yo ma and Chad wit' da arrow and she ain't gon' nowhere."

I grabbed my hat and scrambled to my feet. "Why did you do that?!"

"It's better dis way, Shaun. I'm helping you. Da voodoo gon' help er'ryone. Yo ma can't come down da river wit' us 'cause ah da radiation. Humans are scum, anyway. Yo ma will be happier wit' her own kind, and yo ta will stay wit' us on da Antebellum. Da twins can keep him happy. And you and I… We can stay togeddah."

I couldn't believe it. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing. "I don't want to see you anymore, Peridot. You're fucked up."

"You'll see. I fixed er'ryt'in'..." She got to her knees and reached up for my pants again. "Fo us."

I jerked away. "I didn't want this!"

Her face went sour and she waved at me dismissively. "Gon' and go den, bwah. You'll see what it like out deyah for beings like us and you'll come 'round."

I whistled for my dog.

As Dogmeat stood up, she exclaimed, "Wait!"

Dogmeat stood perfectly still. The look in Peridot's eyes as she stared at him made me even more uneasy.

I patted my knee frantically. "Come _on_ , boy!"

She pulled a sheer purple scarf out from around her waist and held it out to me. "Tie dis to his neck, Shaun."

"No! I am _done_ with you!"

"I'm tryin to help you, bwah!"

"I don't want your 'help'!"

She flung the scarf at us and crossed her arms stubbornly as I jumped back. "Just remember the pine needles, den. You can t'ank me later."

I didn't stick around long enough to ask her what she meant by that. I didn't want to know. I ran out the door, and this time Dogmeat followed. I ran as fast as I could back to the hotel.

I had to tell mom before it was too late. It was already dark as I ran through the downtown streets. My chest was pounding and I was going so fast, I almost lost Dogmeat. I went straight to the hotel room, but no one was there. It only worried me more when I saw the mess. Our things were strewn everywhere and the room was littered in broken glass. Overwhelmed by it all, I flopped down into the desk chair. _Don't fucking cry. It's not the end of the world._

It's hard to hold it together when there's no one around, though.


	22. Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

"Have you completely lost it, Felina?!" I was having a hard time remaining civil with her anymore. "I left behind everyone I know and walked halfway across the country with you because of some ridiculous whim of sentimentality for some place that probably doesn't even exist anymore and now, all of a sudden, you don't want to leave _this_ random place in the middle of nowhere because… why exactly?"

"I have friends here!"

"We had friends _there_! I thought the whole point had something to do with geographical location!"

"This place… isn't so bad." She had a faraway look in her eyes as she fondled the pendant dangling from her necklace. "I didn't know I would like it so much. And the people here…"

I knew that entranced look with the flushed cheeks. She hadn't given it to me since… _God, I can't remember when_. And this one wasn't for me. "It's that fucking smoothskin wannabe punk! What's his name you were trying to sleep with again? Chad?"

She tilted her head forward until locks of hair fell in her face. "I'm not trying to sleep with anyone!"

Like I wouldn't notice she was hiding her eyes… I'm no fool. I already knew what she was hiding. I put fire to the unlit cigarette that had been dangling in my mouth since before things got carried away. "I didn't know a bitch could still roam the streets in heat when she's already pregnant."

"Well, I'm not getting any here!"

"Don't give me that! You turn me down every chance you get and can't _wait_ to go 'spend some time' with _him_!"

"That's not true! I want to fool around with you, Hancock, but we never have any privacy!"

"You don't seem to have any trouble finding the privacy to argue." I threw my arms out to my sides. "We have plenty of opportunities. We have privacy right now, but you'd rather use that time to fight!"

"Puta mentira… You don't know what's it's like!"

"Oh, I don't? Please tell me, what's it like?"

"You don't under _stand_!" She broke into a cry with that last syllable. "It's the hormones!"

I was tired of the manipulative crying. "You can't keep blaming everything on hormones, Felina."

"But it's the truth! ¡Debe ser!"

"It ain't even about the sex, Felina. It's _you_! You sure are awfully frigid and distant for someone who claims they want me so bad."

"Because once we get started, it's not going to make me feel any better without…"

"Without what?" _I swear to god, if she fucking says what I think she's going to say…_ "Ain't it enough that I love you?"

She sobbed loudly. "No, it's not that!" She started mumbling under her breath in Spanish. "¡Juro por puto Cristo, si no me déjame en paz…!"

I hated it when I couldn't understand what she was saying, and she knew it. "You need dick that badly?" I shoved everything off the desk with one violent motion and it all went crashing to the floor. "Come over here and get fucked then!" I slammed my fist down on the surface. "I mean it! Might as well! You don't care about us or that baby!"

Her tears instantly stopped, burned away by the furious fire in her eyes. She lunged in front of me and I braced myself for the impending slap, but that's not what I got. She swung back and punched me in the face with no holds barred. As my head recoiled, my hand instinctively flew to her throat.

"Go ahead and choke me, pendejo," she whimpered weakly, tears squeezing out of her eyes. "You're the one who doesn't care."

Remembering the baby, I released my grip and pulled my hand away. "You're hopeless." I turned away from her. "You want to stay so bad, then fucking stay." I dug some jet out of my pocket and sucked it back. "Let's just stay until April so you can get fucked by that frat boy smoothskin until the baby is born. That's what you want, ain't it? For me to be your fucking cuck until I get to be your dildo again."

She grabbed her bag and ran out the door. Once she was gone, I rubbed at my jaw for a moment. _Goddamn, she hits like a man_. I reached down to the bottle of bourbon on the floor and took a swig. It didn't burn nearly enough. I flung the bottle at the wall and it shattered, spraying brown liquor across the room. I couldn't sit there after all that. I left too, slamming the door behind me.

* * *

_"I have friends here!"_

That made one of us. I hadn't really gotten close enough to anyone there to consider them a "friend," and at that point, I couldn't even count her among them. Hell, even Shaun was never around, always hanging out with Peridot.

It was almost sundown, and I didn't have anywhere to go. I decided to just kill time at the Antebellum until I was calm enough to go back to the room and go to sleep.

There were no longer any crates being loaded onto it by then. On board, it was quiet and strangely empty of passengers. I climbed the spiral stairs to the top deck, and Courtenay and Claudette were sitting alone at the table near the back where I had first met them, sipping iced tea with gloved hands in the pink light of sunset. The cat was reclined on the table between them, lazily swishing its tail.

"Where is everybody?" I asked as I pulled a chair out for myself.

"Gone home…" – "…It's too close to our departure."

"You guys ain't leaving yet, are ya?"

"Where's Menew?..." – "…Ain't your family ready to cross the rivah?"

"Not exactly."

They exchanged one of their signature inside smiles.

Courtenay rose from her chair. "Menew wants to stay, don't she?"

"What?"

Claudette stood up and came behind my chair while the ghoul in red sat in front of me on the table's edge. "We knew this was going to happen…"

"…You could just tell by the way she was acting, which is why we decided…"

"…if you want to join us on our trip to N'awlins, we'd be happy to have ya."

I found their invitation strange and out of place. "No, I don't think so."

"Ya'll just had a fight…" – "…It's written all over your face."

Their behavior added a whole new layer to my feeling of dread. "That ain't really any of your business…"

Courtenay pushed off of the table. "It wasn't just one fight, hoss. There's more all the time…"

"…You two aren't meant to be together…"

"…You should just let her stay." She slinked into my lap and caressed her silky, gloved hand across my cheek. "Claudette and I could help you forget her."

Her sister put her palms on my shoulders and started rubbing them. "Smoothskins can't properly appreciate ghouls…"

"…But my sister and I know a thing or two…"

"…And we do everything together…"

"…We share _everything_..."

"…In fact, we prefer it that way."

I pushed myself up out of the chair and Courtenay stumbled to her feet. "Where the hell is all this coming from?!"

"Give it some thought, hoss, and you'll find it makes perfect sense…"

"…She's carrying your child, but she'd rather spend her time with Chad?" They shook their heads.

"How do you know that?"

"Everyone knows. This town ain't that big…

"…and it ain't right. A stud like you deserves bettah…

"…And she doesn't deserve you."

They closed in on me, one on each side, their hands wandering over me.

"Come to N'awlins with us, Hancock…" – "…We'll make it worth your while."

I stepped backwards away from them. "While that is tempting, ladies, you're forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"She's my wife and I love her, even when she's being a shrew."

" _You're_ forgetting something, Hancock…"

"…Being a shrew is one thing…"

"…Being an adulteress is something else entirely…"

"…Our offer still stands while you figure it out."

* * *

They had got to me, and I had to check in on Felina.

It was dusk when I turned the corner onto Beale Street and scanned the crowd for her. I didn't see her immediately, despite my assumption that a pregnant woman would be easy to find among the rowdy party boys. I walked down the street past the drinking, yelling, throwing up, and general debauchery. Some girl was riding on a guy's shoulders and pulled her top off while everyone cheered. She swung the shirt over her head like a lasso, flinging it out to the spectators. At another time in my life, I probably would have loved that place, but at that moment, seeing everyone around me act like horny teenagers was just making my stomach turn knowing my hormonal, pregnant wife was there somewhere without me.

I tapped the least fucked up looking person I could find on the shoulder and attempted to communicate questions about Felina's whereabouts to him over all the noise. He didn't seem to want to indulge me for even a moment, constantly turning back to the topless broad above our heads. Eventually, he pointed to a building at the far end of the street with a theater marquee above it.

I entered the theater, not really expecting to find Felina there since that guy didn't actually care to help me. Inside, a stage was set up and live music was playing to an unfurnished room with relatively few audience members. I scanned the room and didn't see Felina… But I did spy Chad's stupid hair by a wall. A hint of pink was visible behind him against the wall, and I carefully drew closer for a better look.

I observed from afar as the woman in pink burst into laughter with a cigarette in her hand. Of course I didn't want to believe it was her, but once I saw her face clearly and her large stomach, there was no denying it was Felina. I was already pissed off enough with her running here of all places after our fight and finding her smoking…

But my blood didn't really start to boil until I saw Chad lean forward and kiss her with her between him and the wall. His hand even slid down under her ass. She did push him off, but not quickly enough for my appeasement, and she began laughing again as though his gesture was _amusing_.

As I charged toward Chad, I stopped myself from going for my knife. This wasn't Goodneighbor. No one there knew me, and everyone there had _his_ back. My hands balled into white-knuckled fists.

Felina caught sight of me, and her cigarette dropped, along with her jaw. "Hancock!"

Chad looked at me coolly, very unaware of my history of violence for this girl. "Is there a problem, ghoul?"

"Yeah." I drew back and clocked him one, hard enough that my fist stung – hard enough that he didn't get back up. Felina stared in silent shock as I shook the sensation out of my hand with a couple loose flings.

The crowd of people was starting to get excited over my two-hit fight. I didn't even look at Felina. I just turned away from her and marched out of the building.

Once I was out the door, I ran through the streets as fast as I could in case she was following. I didn't have anything to say to her. I was fucking done. I pushed past everyone with no concern until I made it to the end where the crowd was thinned out. From there, I slowed to a normal pace, continuing to the banks of the river while I dug through my coat for my mentats. I swallowed a couple as I reached the edge of the water and followed the banks north, heading to the Antebellum.

Fucking and fighting. The phrase had followed me most of my life and had a great influence on who I turned out to be. However, I'm not the ponderous type, so there was still so much about it I had never figured out. I know one thing for sure. That's no environment for a kid to grow up in. I would be doing that baby a favor by calling it quits now. Shaun, too. He may not have been a baby himself, but he was still impressionable. That stuff changes you.

I couldn't abide this shit anymore. If she was truly intent on staying there, maybe the twin's invitation was a good idea after all. Felina could flirt and fuck around all she wanted, and I wouldn't have to stand by and watch. Maybe instead, with me gone, she would realize what a mistake she was making, and maybe, _maybe,_ when the boat came back up river, if I was feeling forgiving, _maybe_ we could fix this before the baby was born…

I recalled watching my parents' marriage deteriorate over the years. Are we all destined to turn out like our parents? My brother and I were nothing alike as adults, but then again, he didn't turn to chems like I had. And I still had no idea exactly when he was replaced by a synth, so who's to say he wouldn't have had he been left to his own devices?

The riverboat was already visible up ahead, the string lanterns alit. I trudged on, the waters rushing powerfully beside me. I was still mostly in shock as I walked up the ramp to the boat. The brutal reality of what was happening and the ramifications of my impending actions had not quite set in yet. I knew the internal devastation was inevitable. It was just a matter of time. But you can't make someone love you. They either do or they don't, and Felina had made it clear to me which way she was leaning.

When I made it to the top floor, Courtenay and Claudette were wearing horrifically smug expressions once they saw me on deck.

"There he is!..." – "…We knew you'd be back!"

I didn't say a word to them. I just made my way to the railing and stared back at the shore. Felina would probably check the hotel room first, but this would be her second guess if she were looking for me. She probably wasn't, though. Either way, it was too late. I was as good as gone, and where I was going, she couldn't follow.

Claudette came up behind me, snaking an arm around my front and placing a cigarette in my lips. Courtenay leaned her backside on the railing beside me and held a light to the tip for me.

"You made the right choice..." – "…Don't second guess yourself."

I took a long drag from the cigarette and exhaled. "When are we disembarking, ladies?"

Courtenay made a hand gesture to a nearby porter, who gave her a nod and ran to the bow. "Now that we have our final piece of cargo…"

"…we can leave immediately."

As the paddles started to spin and the boat began to rumble, Claudette slid both her hands around to my front, and Courtenay drew closer, finding space for hers. Caught between them, it was hard to keep track of who's busy hand was where as they sandwiched me. Claudette was squeezing at my sides and trailing kisses up my neck. Courtenay brought her face near mine and sneered, removing my cigarette. She added her own affection to the equation, gliding her other hand up my chest and to my neck, wrapping her fingers at the base as she closed the space between our lips.

For a brief moment, I forgot where I was as Courtenay's tongue slipped into my mouth – a fix I had been craving – but not from her. I started returning her kiss, only thinking about Felina. My tongue stroking hers back only persuaded her to move a hand south, cupping my assets.

Even if the rift between Felina and me was irreparable, I knew as soon as she touched me like that that this wasn't going to work for me. I didn't want them. It was never about the sex. I pushed her away with both hands.

She loosely clutched at the edge of my coat. "Forget about that menew, hoss…"

"…She can't give you what we can."

"This was a mistake." I broke free from them. "I need you to let me off."

The boat was already parted from the dock, slowly drifting out into the river. "You made your decision…" – "…There's no going back."

I put my hands on the rail and looked down. The ground didn't seem as far as I knew it was. "Wanna bet?" I hoisted myself up on the railing.

"What are you doing?!..." – "…You're gonna get yourself killed!"

"Maybe." With both my feet on the rail between my hands, I pushed off, hurling toward the dock three stories below. I wasn't sure that I was going to make the jump across the water until I was a few feet away from the wooden planks. I hit them in a tumble that didn't soften the painful impact as much as I would have liked.

The inertia of my fall sent me rolling across the narrow walkway, and I barely caught myself from dropping over the side into the raging river. If I hadn't been on as many chems as I was at the moment, I probably would have been seriously injured. I sprang to my feet and dusted myself off, looking up at the boat floating away from me.

The twins were peering over the side of the railing from the top floor, their shouting rendered inaudible from the distance and noise. I gave them a sarcastic wave and started stumbling up the dock to the land.


	23. Crystalised (X together X)

Yeah, so I saw some guy put his hands on Felina. At least it was only one set of hands. And at least she didn't sleep with him…

_That I know of, anyway._

Regardless, even if she had been more familiar with him than what I saw, I still didn't feel right about revenge fucking. If I had stayed trapped on that boat with those two, I think it's safe to say it would have been kind of hard to avoid their advances. I mean technically, we were still married… and I still loved her.

It was after dark as I wandered back towards Beale Street. I didn't want her to be there, nor did I really want to get back in that crowd with the way I was feeling, but I was gripped by a sense of self-loathing that insisted I deserved to suffer this. I was angry at her before, but by then, I was angrier at myself – For letting her get me so worked up, for not having better control over my emotions, for doing the exact shit I didn't want her to do. I was a hypocrite. Self-righteous ire was no longer justified.

I stopped at the junction between the river street and the party street and just stared off at the distant crowd. This was close enough. I knew she was there; I didn't need to see.

…

_Mom and dad were well enough off now as evident by our new residential position in Diamond City's stands. They were productive members of the community and well-liked by our neighbors. My brother was the straight-A student, and me? My grades may not have been as dazzling, but I was regarded as the creative one. I did pretty good with my piano lessons. Adults liked me and liked to talk to me. The girls in class always had a crush on me. Everyone thought I was a pleasant little boy. Our family seemed normal and happy to outsiders._

_But for those of us sharing a roof, we knew better. I don't know how that day's fight had started, but did it really matter? As my brother and I hid together in his closet playing cards in the dark by flashlight, trying to distract ourselves from the sounds of our parents yelling and breaking things, I came to realize that it wasn't a new argument. It was just a continuation of the same ongoing, pointless argument that had been getting progressively worse with time._

_I heard the bedroom door crash open into the outside of our closet bunker, and I clicked the flashlight off._

_"Where are those brats?!" dad yelled._

_"Probably ran away!" mom screeched. "You've become so fucking aggressive, is it any shock that no one wants to be around you anymore?"_

_"You made me this way! I've never met a more stubborn, irrational bitch in my life!"_

_I heard the sound of something glass shattering. "You haven't seen irrational yet!" She gasped and it was quiet for a few moments. My brother and I became perfectly still with bated breath, both of us just hoping they would take the fight further away from our hiding spot so we wouldn't feel like we were in any danger of getting dragged into it._

_Mom began to speak quietly in almost a whisper. "Go ahead and give me another black eye if you think the neighbors are gonna buy that story about me falling down the stairs again."_

_My heart was beating so hard, I was scared they could hear it, and we'd be found._

_Dad growled. "Just… get the fuck out of my face."_

_I heard footsteps fleeing and a second set of louder stomps before the impact of a fist hitting the hall wall to our right. A little bit of light showed through the resulting crack, falling in a crooked line down my face, and I tensed up, certain we would be seen. But dad wasn't paying that much attention. A few moments later, I heard the front door slam, and I finally resumed breathing._

_My brother turned the flashlight on again and went back to the cards. "Good. Maybe we'll have a little peace until dinner."_

_I laughed it off nervously. "Heh, yeah."_

_…_

As I stood there, lost and unmoving in the gleam of the streetlights, my ears zeroed in on the sound of someone crying nearby. I followed the noise closely around the corner of a concrete wall holding up a low walkway over the street parallel to the river. I pushed the curtain of vines aside, and there was Felina, sitting on the ground with her back against the concrete, her legs drawn as close as they could be with her belly in the way. Her head was in her hands, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. That necklace Peridot had given her was dangling from her fingers, the pendant glowing eerily in the dim light.

When the streetlight poured over her, her head shot up. "John –"

Oh, sure, now that I had caught her two-timing, she wanted to use my first name. "Where's you smoothskin boyfriend?"

"It's not like that!" Her face was streaked with tears.

The vines fell into place, closing us in as I sat down beside her. "What were you doing with him, Felina?" I asked gently. I was resentful of what she did, but I wasn't going to yell anymore.

"Nothing! You have to believe me."

"I want to, but that was a pretty compromising display you were putting on when I walked in."

"Everything is wrong. It's this place…"

"A few hours ago, you wanted to stay."

"This place is evil!" She frustratedly flung the necklace off into the shadows with a strained grunt. "I just want out."

I pulled out a cigarette. "I ain't getting that impression. You didn't put up much of a fight when that douchebag kissed you." As I brought the flame to the cigarette, she reached out to my collar and pulled a long strand of blonde hair loose, glaring at me wordlessly. I froze, poker-faced. "What?"

"What is this?"

"What does it look like?"

"I have nothing to hide from _you_ , Hancock! You saw everything I did already, but _this_?!" She flung it to the side.

"That doesn't mean a thing. You were the one who ran straight for Chad the second we had words with each other."

She slapped the cigarette out of my hand. "And you ran straight for those boat whores!"

"Yeah, after I saw you were getting your bread buttered elsewhere. What would have happened if I didn't show up when I did?" I was fuming all over again. "I get it. You need it so bad, but you can't get it from me…"

"That goes both ways! Did you sleep with them?"

"No! Not for lack of their trying… I meant it when I said I was done sleeping around, Felina. What about you?"

"Yeah, I could have fucked him if I wanted to," she said scathingly, clutching the sides of my coat with the fabric bunched tightly in her fists. She pushed me to the ground. "But I didn't. I don't want him." She got on top of me, straddling me between her legs and pulling the pink dress off over her head.

I was instantly hard. "Felina…"

She put a finger over my mouth and started grinding at me over my pants, getting as fiercely worked up as she would if they weren't there. I could feel the heat coming off of her, rubbing relentlessly at my swollen bulge. There was a loud buzzing in my head, cancelling the rest of the world out. I hadn't had her on me like this in months, and fighting the urge to take her right then was resulting in beads of sweat forming at my brow.

She withdrew her finger from my lips and grabbed both my hands, guiding them up to her chest, all the while still riding me. "Touch me," she commanded me breathlessly.

When I regained control over my voice, I replied, "Okay." While I was massaging her supple breasts, her hands parted from mine, one lacing its fingers into her hair, pushing bundles of it up her scalp, her other sliding over her round stomach to the space between our legs.

"Oh, fuck," she breathed out in a relieved whisper as she began fondling herself.

A tingle shot up my spine, and I felt a damp spot on my jeans. I didn't know if it was her or me. "I think you should get up." I moved my palms to her waist, guiding her to the side off of me.

The short interruption didn't break her stride. She leaned back over me, kissing my neck, sucking and nibbling at it. She bit down hard enough to leave a mark, and a quick shiver shot through me as I cried out in ecstasy, my trembling hand creeping downstairs to my fly. She covered my hand with her palm and guided it back up to her stiff nipples. After enduring torturous brushes of her lips and tongue against my flesh a little longer, I tried once more reaching for some personal relief…

She stopped my hand short, bringing it up to her face and sucking at my fingers enthusiastically with no sign of slowing. _Okay, I'm supposed to touch her, not me._ As I let my mind pretend she was doing that somewhere else on me, I brought my other hand back to her chest, working my way down between her thighs. Before I could get to my intended destination, she quickly slid backwards out of my reach, lying on the ground between my legs.

My head was spinning. I sat up and looked at her, completely lost. "I'm confused… What do you want me to do, love?"

She bent her legs, spreading them enticingly in front of me. "Nothing. Just watch."

She slowly inserted her own fingers, wriggling into the foliage as she worked at herself. She dragged them back out and pressed at her clit, spreading her lips with her other hand.

"Shhhit, Felina." She had my attention.

As she got caught up in the things she was doing to herself, moaning and squirming, I was torn between watching the main attraction and observing her full breasts dancing gracefully to the rhythm she had created. Either way, I desperately needed to take care of something.

I tried once again to reach for myself, and without missing a beat, she kicked my hand away with her still-booted foot. "No, you only watch right now."

I pulled my hand back. "Yes, ma'am." She was driving me crazy.

She came to her knees and began squeezing at her breasts for a moment, leaving one hand there as her dominant one went back down, wiggling into the petals of her blushing flower. She was working up a sweat, and her stunning, naked contours shimmered in the light pouring through the gaps in our leafy curtain as she writhed to the tempo of some silent song of seduction. Dark strands of her hair clung to her flushed face. She was a gorgeous, sensual mess, and when she moaned my name, I felt a bittersweet sting. I wanted her so bad but felt like she wasn't really mine. In an instant, I felt the precarious uncertainty and fatal longing of myself falling like it was the first time I had laid eyes on her.

"John," she whimpered. "This is so hard to do without you."

The painful erection pushed at the inside of my pants harder. "Do it for me, love. I want to see you come."

"You want me?"

"Yes –" I replied with what little breath she hadn't taken from me.

"Only me?"

"Only you, love. No one else."

"Say that you're mine! I want to hear it…"

"I belong to you, and you only. I'm all yours, Felina."

"¡Háblame! Talk to me, mi amor." Her hips began to roll as she grinded down on her knuckles. "What do you want to do to me?"

She was encroaching on a completely new level of dangerous with this line of questioning. "Felina…" I cooed in a lilting, aroused sigh. "I want to kiss you all over, especially those pouty lips of yours."

"What else?"

"I want to touch you and feel your beautiful, bare body pressing against mine. I want to _ravage_ you like you've never been before. I want to _taste_ you…"

"Yeah?"

"I want to lick you and feel you squirming against my face when I drag my tongue across your sweet slit until you can't handle it anymore. Get you all worked up until you come in my mouth. God, how I miss that…" My voice began to naturally plunge into its lowest, deepest gravel, and I rolled with it. "When I can finally get inside you again and feel your tight, hot pussy against my cock…"

Her fingers and breathing became more erratic. "Are you going to be gentle or rough?"

"Are you kidding me?" I said, feeling an involuntary twitch in my pants. "What you're doing to me right now… I'm going to be feral."

A loud moan slipped out of her.

I had her now. I started to smile. "I'm gonna fuck you so hard and so deep, you're gonna forget your own damn name."

"Oh shit, John!" She covered her face as she gushed right in front of me, her body shaking so violently, I could almost feel her earthquake, too. With her at the finish line, I rushed to open my pants…

…

* * *

…

"I'm gonna fuck you so hard and so deep, you're gonna forget your own damn name."

"Oh shit, John!" I shook and convulsed, his words racing around my head, pushing me over like a waterfall in every possible sense. I came crashing down, only wanting more. It didn't help when he broke free, and I saw the rock hard arousal his pants had been hiding. My eyes drank in the sight from base to tip, idolizing his manhood like the phallic shrine of some carnal, dirty deity.

His fist squeezed around it and he melted, rumbling and growling as he began pumping at himself. The pulsing I was still experiencing from the waist down was urgently craving him, nagging at me to make the sensation happen. My mind raced as it bounced back and forth between taking in the sight of him getting off from me and trying to find a way to make my own relief a reality.

How did I get like this? I didn't used to be like this. My entire prewar life, I had never experienced the passion and desire he ignited in me. I never knew what it was like to be so controlled by my basal drives before I met Hancock. For better or worse, he had transformed me into some sex-crazed nymphomaniac, powerless against him. All the reasons I loved him came flooding back to me. I don't know how I ever forgot in the first place.

"Felina…" he moaned with angelic melody, his fingers wrapped around my throbbing, pulsing altar, punishing it for wanting me.

The way my name had crossed his lips stirred something sinful and ravenous deep inside me, and I couldn't take it anymore. I forcefully pushed him down onto the ground and trapped him under me again.

"What are you doing?!" He exclaimed as I lowered my inflamed, dripping hole over his tip.

"I _need_ you, John!" I started to guide him into me. "Just pull out when you have to."

He shook his head frantically. "I can't…"

I slammed down onto him, his rigid member dragging against my hungry, engorged walls until my ass clapped against his legs and I finally felt the glorious, elusive, raw relief. His back curved up off the ground and a drawn-out, orgasmic gasp escaped from deep in his chest in harmony with my own.

He filled me completely, satisfyingly stretching my soft flesh. So big… so hard… It felt every bit as euphoric as I expected it to, better than any cigarette or chem. I instantly forgot about everything… all the fighting, all the frustration, all our problems…

Possessed by the same overwhelming desire as I was, he grabbed hold of my hips hard enough to bruise and drove himself brutally up into me, the force of every impaling blow bumping me skyward and bringing me back down heavily after the peak of every arch. I threw my head back and rode, willfully falling under the spell of the cocktail of natural chemicals flushing me as my body thrashed on top of him. _Felina who?_

After only a few moments of this, he used his powerful grip to roll me under him, following closely with our connection still in place. He moved his hands to my wrists, pinning my hands on either side of my head, and a fresh rush washed over me with him dominating now, my hopelessly aroused body at the mercy of his strength. With only a few savage thrusts pounded into me, he suddenly pushed himself off in a feral growl. I followed him, sitting up and witnessing his release that had already started inside me, the sharp hot bursts finishing on my thigh.

He quickly wiped away the mistake with his hand and crumpled face first on the ground with one arm trapped under him, his other pounding a fist to the dirt. His back heaved upward as he took a deep breath. "Ffffffffuuu…"

I froze, staring between my legs as I tried to process the situation

"…..uck!" He finished, gasping for air.

We stayed like that without another word between us, the only sound being the sharp draws of our lungs trying to get their functions back on track, winning the race against our brains.

He rolled his face away from the ground and spoke with quiet remorse. "I fucked up."

"No, _I_ fucked up."

"We. We fucked up."

_At least we were functioning as a unit again – fucking up together._


	24. Schism

"I'm so sorry, John!" I hid my face in my hands, stifling a cry.

"It's just as much my fault as yours."

I peeked between my fingers as he rolled over onto his back and saw he had his eyes covered with one hand.

"Please put your clothes back on, Felina."

I grabbed the dress from the ground and started wiggling into it. "Put your piece away, querido." I retorted.

Getting dressed, my mind was racing, and I started thinking more clearly. "I don't just mean I'm sorry for losing control just now. I mean for all of it."

"I know, love. Me, too." He grunted as he pulled his pants up and closed them. "But we have a bigger problem on our hands now."

It really bothered me that because of our mistake, there was no time to talk about us. The only upside, it pushed us right past our dissonance, forcing us to work together . "So what do we do?"

"What _can_ we do?"

"Maybe I should take some radaway…"

"No." He went for his cigarettes, tapping one out of the end of the pack. "Dr. Amari said it would cause placenta fusion or whatever."

I put a hand to my stomach and felt the baby kicking gently. "Yeah, but she also said in an emergency, I should."

"She said if it was a life-threatening emergency for both of you." He sat up and lit his cigarette. "What does the pip-boy say?"

I checked the rad reading. "43. That's not real bad, right?"

"For you, no. I don't know about junior, there."

"Well, what's worse? A low dose of radiation or one dose of radaway?"

"I have no idea, love." He sighed. "Do you have any radaway with you?"

"No…"

"Let's get out of here, then." He stood up and held the vines open. "We can talk about this on the way back to the room."

When he pulled me up out from under the walkway, I dove into his chest. "I love you so much, John." I kept fighting the tears. I was so tired of crying.

He wrapped his arms around me. "I love you, too. Everything is going to be fine, okay?"

"Okay." I couldn't tell if he was trying to convince himself or me. I started down the street. "Can we go ahead and go to the Antebellum, tonight? I don't want to be here anymore."

He followed with one arm still around me. "That ship has literally sailed, love. We're going to have to find another way across the damn river..."

My brow furrowed as I absorbed what he was saying.

"…One step at a time. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

_Of course._

When Hancock and I got back to the hotel and entered the room hand in hand, Shaun was sitting with his head down on the desk. He shot his head up and gasped. "Where is that necklace?" he exclaimed frantically.

I instinctively reached for my chest, my fingers lingering where the pendant would hang. I had forgotten about it. "Oh, I… lost it." _It's just as well._ I didn't want a reminder of that godawful town.

He jumped up and ran into our arms.

I looked down at him. "Are you alright, hijo?"

"Do you and dad still love each other?"

"Of course!" Hancock and I exchanged a glance. "I know we've been fighting a lot, recently, but we're okay. Don't worry. I think we've gotten it all out of our system."

"Then… I'm okay." He was still hugging us, so we held him tighter.

I'd never seen him be so clingy. It had to be more than the arguing bothering him. "Are you upset about Peridot leaving?"

"No." He nuzzled into us deeper. "Not even a little." There was no hesitation in his response.

I couldn't believe how reckless I had been. I hadn't just been pushing Hancock away, but I had been distressing Shaun and ultimately ended up endangering the unborn baby. I didn't feel like I had been myself at all those past few days, but I knew that was no excuse. I had to find a way to fix this, but the baby had to come first. "Come on, hijo. Let's get ready for bed."

After we had the room straightened up and Shaun tucked in, I grabbed a bag of radaway and crept through the dark to the bathroom. There was a nightlight glowing dimly on the wall, so I decided not to risk waking Shaun up by turning on the main light. I put the lid down on the toilet and sat on it.

Once I had the bag hung from a towel rack and was getting ready to tap a vein, Hancock walked in.

"So, we're doing the radaway?" he asked.

"I suppose so." I pushed the needle into my skin and jumped at the sting. It had been a long time since I had done anything like that. As I made a fist, the baby started kicking, and I instinctively looked up at Hancock. The worry lines on his brow deepened when his eyes met mine. It burned more than I remembered. I opened the Geiger counter on the pip-boy and watched with concerned anticipation as the numbers of my rad count slowly began to drop. The lower they got, the more the baby kicked.

It suddenly didn't seem fair to me. We had royally fucked up for a stolen moment of intimacy, and after all that we never…

The meter was down in the teens when I looked up at Hancock once more. "Kiss me."

"What?"

"We're already going the radaway route." I pulled him closer by the sides of his coat and looked pleadingly up at him standing over me. "This will be our last chance…"

You could easily see the internal struggle reflected in his eyes.

The reading was down to twelve and the baby was kicking up a storm. I palmed my stomach. "Please… and make it count."

He grabbed me by my shoulders and urgently pulled me up to him. He parted his lips, and I swooned as I felt his tongue push past my lips, penetrating me on a deeply emotional level. The warm, closeness of his ingress flooded me with a phantom wave of healing. His hands slid down me and around my back, and I reached out to him as well, embracing him with possessive heedlessness. My ears started to ring as I stroked back with my tongue and began sucking at him, tasting him and savoring every sublime moment. When I released his lip, he pressed soft, wet kisses against mine, each touch sending warm shivers down my spine. It was comforting, fulfilling…right.

As the ringing in my head subsided, so did the kicking. I jerked away and brought the pip-boy up to my face. The reading was only fifteen. I put a hand to my stomach again.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know." The baby was still squirming around, but not as violently as before. "I think we should stop."

"What's it doing?"

"Nothing. I mean…" I panicked for a brief moment from the lack of movement I felt, but as the number resumed dropping, the life inside me started to get worked up again, as though in protest. I didn't know which was worse – the kicking or the stillness. Once the readout on the meter was in the single digits, the baby was flailing around enough that I reflexively doubled over.

Hancock grabbed my shoulders again. "Are you okay?!"

The moment it reached zero, I yanked the needle out and squeezed my fingers around the tender hole in my flesh. There was still over half a bag left. "Yeah. I think that's enough. The baby seriously didn't like that."

"When we were kissing?"

"No, the radaway."

"Lesson learned…" His eyes glazed over with somber regret. "The hard way… as usual. All we can do now is wait and see."

"Let's just hope we did the right thing." I reached for my stomach again as I dropped back to my seat.

Hancock perched himself near me on the side of the tub with a sigh. "What happened to us, Felina?" he asked in a defeated, gentle manner.

As badly as I wanted to square this conversation away earlier, I was surprised by the feeling of dread that filled me when he started in on it. It was his tone. There was something in it that unnerved me.

I must have been silent too long, as he continued without me. "I know I said and did some things that were out of line, and for that, I'm truly sorry. But the way you've been acting lately…"

"That wasn't me, John. I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean any of that."

He hid his abused feelings behind a half smile. "I don't want to believe that that's who you are, but you really have me wondering…"

His words were like a knife in the back. "Wondering what?"

"Every couple argues sometimes, and that's fine. But you've been consistently shitting on me ever since bedtime became 'unconjugal'…And I'm wondering… if maybe our entire relationship really _is_ based on sex. That…That ain't healthy."

"Querido –"

"No 'queridos' or 'amors' right now, love. I need you to just listen."

_Shitshitshit._

"Now, I ain't trying to cop out of taking care of that baby. And I don't want you thinking I intentionally sabotaged its safety either. Chalk it up to a shared moment of weakness. For better or worse, once it's born, I'll be as involved – or not – as you want me to be. You ain't gotta worry about that. And I ain't gonna make you finish this trip alone, either. But if you don't want…I mean if you…" He paused and took a deep breathe. "I'm trying to say I don't want to be trapped in a toxic relationship. It's just gonna make us both miserable. I really don't want to be without you, Felina, but if the alternative requires keeping my cool while being your verbal and literal punching bag when we're not naked… Well, I still have enough self-respect left to know better than to stay."

I never meant for it to come to this. "John, no! I –"

He cut me off, stern and assertive, like a father lecturing his child. "I want you to think before you speak, Felina. Don't just tell me what you think I want to hear. I want the truth."

I felt my whole world crashing down around me. "John, I love you –"

"I know you do… to some degree. And I still love you, despite all of this bullshit. But I don't know if that's good enough. Now, I ain't gonna fight with you anymore, especially not in front of Shaun, but there's no point forcing it if it ain't working. Something to think about."

I could already feel the tears building up behind my eyes, but I was too in shock at the moment to open the floodgates. "Are you saying…we're over?"

"No. No…Not yet anyway. But maybe."

"I don't understand. What about what we just did under that walkway? All that stuff you said…?"

"That was a mistake, and you and I both know it."

"But that kiss?"

"You said so yourself. It was our final chance."

The tears were freely trickling down my face on their own now. "How can I fix this, John? Please!"

"You would have to show me that you really want to make this work. Somehow…" He stood up. "We don't have to finish this conversation right now. In fact, it's probably best we don't. We need to put some distance between ourselves and all the things that happened today before we can seriously discuss anything." He moved to the door, pausing before he walked out. "After you've given it some thought and figured out what you really want out of this, then we can finish." He hung his head. "Goodnight, Felina." With that, he shut the door behind him, leaving me there in the dark bathroom, alone and thoroughly rattled.

I grabbed my chest. It felt tight and I couldn't seem to get enough air…

_Breathe, Felina._ _It's not over._ _You can fix this._

Once I had collected myself enough to not completely break down, I headed out of the bathroom to go to bed. My heart dropped when I saw Hancock had taken his half of the pillows and blankets to the floor where he was laid out.

_What have I done?_

I crawled into bed alone and silently cried myself to sleep.

* * *

All night, my sleep was interrupted by disturbing dreams. I kept seeing that stinkin' cat from the riverboat standing on the foot of the bed in the dark, just staring at me, slowly swishing its tail… and then I would wake up. In the most vivid and troubling one, the baby was born early and it was completely ghoulified and feral. Unable to sleep restfully, I was up before everyone else with all of our things packed and ready to go. No, not ready to go – Ready to get the fuck out. Fuck that place.

Later that morning, we approached the entrance to the M Bridge collectively eager to leave Kudzu Bluff behind us but still nervous, not knowing what to expect from the 201's we'd only heard vilified stories about up until then.

The steel beams that formed the M shape forebodingly enclosed the bridge like the skeleton of a tunnel. Beams of sunlight glinted off the centuries-old metal enough to blind if you looked at it wrong, and the humid air of the day was stifling as we drew closer to the massive and unavoidable cage. The steady breeze brought with it the smell of rotting plants and mold. It all added up to an outright assault on the senses, hindering our abilities to remain sharp.

Once we were at the first towering beam, a single shot was fired in our direction, and we all dove for cover behind a pile of tires.

"We'll pay for passage!" Hancock shouted to the assailant.

"Man, fuck you!" came the reply. "We can see everything from up here, and ya'll're in league with that funky hoodoo bitch!"

I raised an eyebrow, and Shaun sighed. A barrage of shots popped off, whizzing over our heads.

"Stop shooting!" Hancock shouted to them again. "This woman is pregnant!"

"Mayne, I thought that ho was just thick!"

It was quiet for several moments, and I cautiously poked my head out from our bunker for a look.

A female voice exclaimed from further ahead. "Felina?!" I couldn't see who the voice belonged to.

It was followed by a man's voice. "Hold your fire! They with us!"

The girl shouted again, "Come on out! Ya'll're safe!"

All of us slowly rose up, and I saw Fray and Rae Rae running toward us. "Are you kidding me?" I cried as she dove into me, squeezing me into a hug. "You guys are 201's?"

"I never thanked you," she said, squeezing surprisingly hard for such a petite woman. "Performing for that crowd the other night was everything I always wanted!"

Rae Rae fist bumped Hancock. "What's up, playa?"

Fray turned back to the bridge with her arm over my shoulder, leading us up the incline. "They said I could come back anytime I want! I got a full time gig with them. This is a real game changer for me!"

I smiled. "I'm glad I could help."

They brought us into their base and introduced us around, speaking highly of us. Everyone there was extra friendly and accepting of us, no questions asked.

We sat down at a table, and Rae Rae pulled out a hand-rolled cigar and lit it. He took a drag off it and passed it to Hancock, holding in the smoke as he spoke. "Ya'll ain't leavin' Kudzu Bluff already, are ya?"

He accepted the offer. "We've already been here longer than we meant to be." He took a casual drag off of the cigar and started coughing uncontrollably. "What… the fuck…?!"

The cloud of smoke that forcibly left his lungs wafted in my direction and I caught a whiff. "Is that… weed?!"

Fray and Rae Rae exploded into laughter.

"Yeah," Rae Rae answered. "But you ain't never blazed no shit like this up north! They grow the good shit in the states south of here. Something about the radiation gives it more THC or somethin'."

Hancock looked at the blunt he was holding with careful consideration. "Weed?"

"You remember, querido. I told you about it when we first met."

Rae Rae smirked. "Ay, you gonna pass that, fam? Shit's burnin'."

Hancock's response was delayed. "Uh, yeah." He gave it back to Rae Rae.

"Naw, other way."

He perplexedly held the blunt to his other side, and Fray took it from him. I watched as Hancock's distant look shifted into a silly grin. "Weed?"

The couple burst into laughter again.

Rae Rae took his hit and passed the blunt to him once more. "What I tell ya? This shit got you on loop."

Hancock hit it again and passed it, quickly catching on to the custom. He reached in his pocket and pulled out some caps. "Can I buy some of this off ya?"

Rae Rae and Fray exchanged a look, and he directed his attention back to my husband. "For you, I reckon we could part with some." He pulled out a new cigar and split it down the middle, pulling the tobacco out. "Those assholes on the boat control all the trade 'round herr," he explained as he put the discarded tobacco into one tin and pulled the green stuff out of another. "They have ever since the war, I'm told, and they refuse to trade with us, so tobacco and weed have been hard for us to come by." He sprinkled the herb down the length of the wrapper.

Fray nudged me. "But it looks like now that we're allied with the Beale Street boys, we got a more steady supply."

Shaun exhaled dramatically. "It's hard to tell who the good guys are."

Rae Rae flashed him a gold smile. "I wouldn't say we the 'good guys', sho'tie, but it sho 'nuff ain't those Luzianna chickenheads on that boat." He licked the cigar and sealed it, handing it to Hancock.

Hancock tried to pay him for it, but Rae Rae shook his head. "Naw, that's all you, fam. Call it a going away present."

When we finally made it to the other side of the river, our time with the 201's left us with a slightly better taste in our mouths.

Shaun tuned his new pip-boy to Sunny South radio so we could catch some more music before it was out of range. George's friendly, drawled voice was speaking soothingly:

"This next one goes out to my friends that dropped by the studio the other day. You know who you are. Good luck on your journey west, ya'll."

It was an energetic bluegrass tune:

 

"… _I don't trouble the water, but the water troubles me_

_I don't ever wanna see the Mississippi again_

 

_These river towns ain't nothing more but killers, sinners, thieves and whores_

_And I aim to see some holy water washing off their shores_

_Down through Delta, that seething, muddy hell_

_Where the world goes underwater and the rising river swells_

 

_Never gonna see the Mississippi again_

_Never gonna see the muddy water again_ …"

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I heaved a sigh of relief, happy to be back on the road. I felt that overwhelming need to run that I had picked up from Hancock, and continuing our journey west was the next best thing.


	25. Be Sure It's True When You Say 'I Love You'

THIRD TRIMESTER

* * *

The other side of the river looked barren without the blanket of invasive vines, but it wasn't any less lush than the Commonwealth. My eyes had readjusted to the greenery over the past few days though, and the new landscape gave me a misleading repeat feeling of being lost and hopeless with the weight of the world's end once again upon me – like I had just stepped out of the vault. Like I was on my own with nothing.

Each of us was in our own individual worlds, brooding and buttoned up. We walked for miles like that without interacting. It was awkward, and I wanted to speak, but my self-confidence had been shattered. I was too scared I may say the wrong thing and make things worse. I had to do something, though. I had a lot of mistakes to erase somehow, or I really would be on my own.

Naturally, I was distraught that Hancock was actually considering us separating, but honestly, it wasn't an unreasonable response to my behavior. What I was really in disbelief about was my behavior itself. I couldn't comprehend how things had gotten so out of hand with me. It didn't make sense, and I would do anything to take it back if I could.

But I couldn't change the past. I needed to focus on what I could do to make him forgive me. But how? I tried to think more forward, but I kept dwelling on all the stupid shit I had done. As appalled with myself as I was, I couldn't imagine what he was thinking about me.

As my mind waded through the events of the past few days, I remembered how when we had first made it to Kudzu Bluff and spent the night in that train, Hancock had managed to grab all of our most important supplies. But with so little time to escape, he didn't roll up our sleeping bags, leaving them to lay in the bed of the river with that train. Shaun still had his, but Hancock and I didn't have anything between us. This overlooked circumstance came to the foreground of my thoughts when my weary, sleep-deprived brain started replaying the unfavorable bed arrangements from the night before.

I had already made a contingency plan to storm a raider camp for their blankets as soon as I saw one when I began to realize I hadn't seen one yet. No Brotherhood in a long while either. I wasn't sure if that was good, or if I should be alarmed.

I was still pondering this idea when I saw a pack brahmin up ahead. Even better. We could just buy some bedding. I pulled some caps out of my bag and handed them to Shaun.

"What do I want with this?" he asked.

"Caravan up ahead. I need you to get your dad and me a couple sleeping bags or whatever he has."

He looked at me incredulously. "Why can't you do it?"

"You need the practice bartering. I've had plenty."

He kept staring at me loathsomely.

"Hey, you readily accept lock-picking and knife-spinning lessons from dad. Well, these are mom lessons. Sorry they aren't more exciting."

He sighed and quickened his pace to meet the trader.

I put a hand on Hancock's shoulder, slowing him to a stop. "I need to say something, querido."

"Hancock," he replied, avoiding eye contact. "No pet names right now." He took out an inhaler of jet and whiffed it back in one swift motion.

I stifled a sigh. "Listen, I understand the points you were making, last night, and I respect your request for space and all that, but Shaun is obviously troubled. I'd appreciate it if, tonight, you didn't intentionally put a bunch of literal distance between us like you did back in the hotel."

"I don't make a habit of being deceitful with the kid, Felina."

"No, and I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you not to draw any unnecessary attention to our problems if we don't have to."

He fidgeted in silence for a few moments. He started digging at the chems in his pocket again, removing his tin and pushing the tablets around with his fingers before selecting one. Soon, Shaun was heading back toward us, lugging a couple of blanket rolls. Hancock groaned. "Alright. For now at least."

"Thank you, John." I knew he had just asked to be called Hancock. Just testing a few limits. He didn't make any remarks, but he did shoot me a little glance right before Shaun reached us, dropping the bedding at our feet.

My son held his fist out to me. "Your change."

I picked up my new bed and strapped it to my back, returning Hancock's dull glare. "Keep it, hijo."

He pocketed the caps indifferently, and we continued on.

Later on, the sun was long gone, and the full moon was hovering just over the treetops, big, close, and blood red. We all had our beds laid out. Hancock had set his blanket up next to mine, but assured me in a whisper it was only to keep up appearances for Shaun. Once he had made that clear, he walked off away from camp, probably to do some more goddamn chems…

I was sitting on my bedroll, tuning my guitar, while Shaun was lying awake in his with Dogmeat curled up by his side. He still seemed upset. I could see the hurt in his eyes by the light of our campfire. "Do you want to talk about something, hijo?"

"Like what?"

"Seems like you have something on your mind."

"No, mom. I'm fine. All of us are here, away from Kudzu Bluff. You and dad are still together. Everything is fine."

I frowned slightly. "Are you that worried about your dad and me?"

"Todo esta bien. Goodnight."

I was fairly certain he only used the Spanish on me to shut me up, but no, everything was not fine, and even he knew it. But what could I do? I began to play softly and sing a lullaby my mom used to sing to me:

 

" _Cierras ya tus ojitos._

_Duerme te sin temor._

_Sueña con angelitos_

_Parecidos a ti._

_Y te agarrare tu mano._

_Duerme te sin temor._

_Cuando tu despiertes,_

_Yo estare aqui._ "

 

Shaun's eyes were closed by the time I got through the first refrain.

I kept playing and noticed Hancock had returned, hanging back, smoking a cigarette coolly, and standing in a lean on a tree. His coattails waved subtly by his crossed boots in the gentle breeze. His eyes looked faraway, obviously high. I finished the song before openly acknowledging his presence with a silent nod. I quietly put my guitar away and came over to him, pulling him by his arm to the other side of the wide trunk. "Can we talk now?" I asked in a whisper.

He thumped the butt into the dirt, snuffing it with his toe, and folded his arms rigidly. The corners of his mouth drew down, and his eyes darted to the ground briefly and then back up at me. "Can't this wait, Felina? It's only been a day." He kept his tones hushed as well, mindful of our sleeping son.

I looked past the tree to make sure Shaun was still asleep. I spoke quietly. "Can I show you something?"

He nodded, rubbing his fingers across his nostrils in a sharp sniff.

I pulled out a small scrap of paper from my pocket. I unfolded it carefully, taking heed not to let it rip at the already fragile, thin creases. "Do you remember this?" I handed him the worn-edged paper that only had four little lines scrawled on it:

" _Roses are red_

_Violence is, too_

_I like to stab people_

_For hassling you_ "

He took it delicately in his fingers and looked down on it with a small grin highlighted along with his uneven skin in the crimson glow of the fire and moon. "Yeah." He chuckled lightly and handed it back to me. "I left this on your pillow the morning after that little get together in the State House the first time we came back to Goodneighbor."

"It was before we had ever even kissed." I returned his smile. "I remember watching you with your friends there and realizing for the first time that I had been falling for you and didn't even know it."

His smile widened some. "Yeah, I remember seeing that, too. It was written all over your face. And you got all embarrassed when I caught you ogling me when you thought I wasn't looking."

I folded the paper back up and returned it to its home. "I've kept this on me ever since. I knew it wasn't a love note in its words, but it was symbolic of one, and I understood that. It meant so much to me. Still does."

His smile quickly faded. "If you really want to do this right now, you don't get to do that."

"Wait, what?"

"I see what you're doing, Felina. Of course our relationship started out good. Otherwise, we never would have been a couple in the first place. But all that's the past."

"Yes, but it really happened. Why would you want to forget the good times? That just seems cruel and unnecessary."

"I ain't trying to forget the good times. There was a time when I could feel how much you loved me with a smile or a stolen glance. You loved me for who I was. We were partners, bringing justice to the Commonwealth together, and holding each other all night. I'm going to cherish those memories forever."

"That's what I'm trying to say –"

"But do you know what else really happened more recently?" He started ticking his list off on his fingers. "You talked to me like a dog for a month straight, hit me, and kissed some other guy. I'm thinking about the future, Felina. Almost all of our good times have revolved around one of two events: killing or sex. How long do you think a relationship can sustain on that? And while raising a _baby_?"

I just stared at him wordlessly. I didn't even know what someone can say to that. I mean, I could think of a thing or two, but nothing that would help my case, only hurt it.

He continued. "I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've come to the conclusion it can't. Once the newness of it all wore off, we just became the same miserable couple that I've seen get married time and again – the ones that made me think to myself, 'That will never be me. I'm never going to get married.' I thought we could beat the odds, but it just turns out we ain't special. I was always afraid this might happen, but I hoped against hope that it wouldn't. It's why deep down, I've always had this lingering insecurity that made me feel like you ain't really mine."

That explained some of his weird ramblings that night he turned ghoul for the second time. "Well, there's the problem right there. I _am_ yours, John. I really do love you, and I've proven it before. You can't expect things to be perfect all the time."

"I ain't that unrealistic, Felina. I don't expect things to be perfect, but this ain't an argument over who has to do the dishes." He stayed true to his word about not fighting with me, never raising his voice. "This is a very real, grown-up problem. And I always knew my relationship with you hung in a volatile balance since the first time you threw away what we had to switch loyalty to the Institute –"

"Whoa! You're not seriously going to cite that mistake I made after all this time, are you?"

"It almost broke me, Felina." His words shook, hinting at the hidden wound that was still tender to the touch. "It still bothers me. I know you realize in hindsight it was a mistake, but the fact that it happened at all makes me constantly second-guess your judgment."

"We all make mistakes, John. You haven't been a saint either. "

He held up a hand and shook his head with his eyes pressed closed tightly. "Stop. You ain't gotta remind me how I fucked up –"

"And I don't need you to remind me of how I fucked up, either. I just need you to forgive me."

"I _have_ forgiven you. But in my experience, it's unwise to forget. That's how you get fucked again."

I was getting superficially frustrated from his immediate obstinacy. I took a deep breath and tried to get back on track. "You said before that you still love me despite all of this. If that is even a little bit true, then we should be able to get past this. I'm not ready to give up, yet, and you… You promised me if I stayed with you, you were done running."

His eyes wavered, like I had caught him in a lie. "I don't remember ever saying that _out loud_ …"

Of course he didn't. He had said it in a fever, but that didn't make it any less true. He had still thought it, and he knew it.

Time to reel it in. I draped my arms over his shoulders and looked up into his shimmering, black eyes. "I have no problem telling you I love you over and over if that's what I have to do, but you have to give me another chance if I'm ever going to get to show you."

His voice got quieter and breathy, and his eyes glazed over. I think he was cracking. "No, I don't have to give you another chance to hurt me," he said, sounding distracted and uncommitted to his words. "That ain't how the world works, Felina." His mouth was automatically coming closer to mine.

"No, that's how love works." I drew my body closer to his, our lips almost touching. I could feel his breath on me. I brought my voice down like his, pouring seductive sweetness into it. "I love you, John. How can I make you believe it?"

"You really ain't getting it, are ya?" He calmly placed his palms on my arms and pulled them away from him, taking a step back. "I want you to show me…without sex. If you recall, I'm concerned that our naked time is what you're in love with, and not me." He sighed. "I know you really thought you loved me, in the beginning, but I think, maybe, it's what you were going through back then that made you think that. You needed a shoulder to cry on, and I was always there when we were on the road, so it was convenient, but now that you're past that, I think what I'm seeing is your true colors – what it's going to be like in the future... And we really did have some good times. I don't want to sully them by not gracefully bowing out now before it only gets worse."

"John, no!" I hissed in a whisper. I was losing him, and my alarm was hard to hide. My carefully calculated words were unraveling. "You have it backwards. It's what I'm going through now that's making me act differently. I really do love you."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why do you love me? You keep saying it, but do you even know why?"

I was taken aback. "You need to stop being so self-deprecating –"

"No, that ain't what this is. I need to know. If you love me so much, you should have no problem telling me why."

I had reasons – plenty of them, but I was caught off guard by his request for a list of them. My mind panicked and went blank. "Well, why do you love _me_?"

His lips got tight and his eyes narrow. "I've been asking myself the same thing lately…"

_Ouch._

"…You used to love me for who I am and be proud to be by my side, but lately?" He just shook his head. "And all your outward beauty seems to pale with your hostility. Your smile… your smile was exceedingly beautiful, but I never see it anymore."

I felt my heart breaking all over again.

"Your round belly that you have now with our child inside… That should be beautiful. This should be a happy time for us, but it hasn't been. This ain't what I signed on for."

My hand slid over my stomach unconsciously, and I looked down at it in shame. He was right.

"Are we done, now?"

I shook my head, still facing the ground. "No. I haven't stopped loving you, John."

"Don't just say it. Do it. Bring back the person I fell in love with, and maybe we can talk again. Until then, we're still separated." He started to go.

My heart pounded as I lifted my head and watched him leaving. "Wait!" I called out to him with an outstretched arm.

He sighed with his back to me. "What is it, Felina?" His voice was still gentle and even.

"You've hurt me, too…"

"I ain't denying that." He turned to face me once more.

"Yes, but it feels like you're punishing me for what I did. I'm not doing that to you. You asked me to tell you what I want out of this… I just want us to be together. You want to see me smile, again? Well, this isn't the way to do it."

He lingered for a few moments with no response. He eventually turned away from me once more and left. I think I may have gotten to him. At least a little.

I had to believe that. It was my last bastion of hope.

* * *

It was definitely my fault. I took him for granted. If I ever won him back, it's a mistake I would never make again…

We walked together in an awkward little group akin to that of strangers for almost two weeks. Even Shaun seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder, or maybe I was just being paranoid. I mean, something was obviously bothering him, but that didn't mean it was necessarily something I did. I was already feeling guilty, so I could have easily been projecting. It didn't help that every time I tried to engage him, he would avoid opening up to me, but he didn't seem to be opening up to Hancock either.

Nearly every night, I would attempt to get Hancock to talk about us, and every time, he would promptly shoot me down, going off away from camp by himself.

Everything was damn near perfect when we were in the Commonwealth. Domestic, tame, maybe a little a dull… So what if I had to do a few tedious and repetitive tasks for the Minutemen every now and then? It was a small price to pay for comfort and stability. Overall, I wished I had never initiated this journey in the first place. It had only provided an opportunity for us to fall apart. Too late to turn back now, though.

The flatness of the delta started to gradually slope uphill again as we got further from the river. Once we hit the two week mark, the climb above sea level became more noticeable, and I could see hills on the horizon. Frustrating memories of the Appalachian Mountains flashed through my head. _Not again._

I was slowing down. At that new altitude, it was starting to actually feel like late December, too. I tried to hide my shivering from the others. It wasn't that I was too proud or anything like that. I didn't want to give the appearance of trying to instigate pity.

On top of the cold and the climb, I was feeling dizzy. I recognized that that was probably attributed to the particular stage of pregnancy I was at, but simply knowing it was not enough for me to conquer it with sheer will. I had to ask the boys to stop for a minute. While I was trying to catch my breath, I dug around my belongings for my suit jacket. Amidst all the drama and unseasonably warm weather in Kudzu Bluff, I had neglected to apprehend a proper coat to fit my newly bloated body.

I put it on, but it was tight around my armpits and wouldn't close over my breasts, which consequently were hefty enough that I really needed to start wearing a bra, too, but that's not something I had bothered with since leaving the vault. I tried to hide my disappointment as I huddled up with my legs close, shivering and woozy. The way I was feeling was perfectly summed up by that whole situation.

Hancock, smoking a cigarette, pulled some chems out of his coat pocket. _That's just what he needs – another chem break._

He surprised me when he put the inhalers and tin in his pants pocket, partaking of none. Then, he casually strolled over to me and, without a word, he wrapped his red frock coat around my shoulders. I looked up at him with puzzled, adoring eyes as I clutched the collar around me. It smelled like tobacco and…him. I really missed that…

"I ain't gonna stand by and watch you freeze. You should have said something."

I searched my head for the appropriate response. The only thing I could come up with was a simple, "Thank you."

He blew out a puff of smoke that could have just as easily been condensation from the cool air. "No problem." He looked like he wanted to say more, but his eyes momentarily darted to Shaun, and his face blanked out, abandoning any further expressions.

I was already feeling better. "Won't you be cold?"

"I'll be fine. The baby is more important." After another quick glance at Shaun, he knelt down by my ear and whispered, "However shaky our marriage is right now, that doesn't mean I'm a heartless dick. If you or the baby need anything, I'm still here. Now, don't read too much into what I'm about to do. This is for Shaun." He gave me a peck on the cheek and stood back up, offering me a hand. "Good to go?"

This turn of events added to my dizziness, and I automatically took his hand and stood, still unsure what to make of it all. "Yeah." My own sideways glance at the look on my son's face as I put my arms through the sleeves told me he wasn't buying this charade, but I wasn't about to break Hancock's affectionate streak toward me by telling him.

Later that evening when we were stopping for the night, Shaun pulled out the Soil Stradivarius and rosined the bow. "Mom, will you play me an E so I can tune the violin."

"Of course, hijo." I got out the guitar and played the top string.

"The other E."

"Oh. Sorry." I plucked the bottom string and cringed at the sour note that resonated. He played the E on his violin and it sounded perfect. "Forget it, hijo. I'd be better off tuning to yours."

He smiled and played some scales, sounding confident and melodic. Not joking, I tuned my guitar by the sounds of his instrument. I returned his smile. "You're getting pretty good with that thing."

"Gracias." He started playing a simple song Wade had taught him, and I jumped in with some light strumming as soon as I caught on.

While Shaun and I were playing together, Hancock walked away from camp per his new routine as of late. I slowed my playing to a stop and looked after him sadly. I'm not sure what he was doing with that time, but I could make a few guesses.

Shaun brought the song to an end and scooted closer to me. "Mom?"

I stopped looking out into the woods and brought my gaze downward to my guitar, trying to play the look off. "What is it, Shaun?"

He spoke quietly near me. "What's going on with you and dad?"

I was afraid that's where this was going. "Nothing, hijo. We're just still sad about our fight."

"No more lies, remember?"

"I remember, Shaun, but some things are just personal. It's not a lie anyway. That's just the short version."

He sighed, laying the violin in its case. "Look, I know it's none of my business, but I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Hijo –"

"Did something happen with that guy Chad?"

My eyes trailed up to him, looking at him with severity. "Shaun, just don't worry about it, okay? No matter what happens, we both love you."

"I can tell he's upset with you." He glanced nervously over his shoulder into the woods where Hancock had disappeared and began fidgeting. "I don't really know how to say this…"

I kissed him on the forehead. "You don't have to say anything, hijo."

"It's not your fault, mom. He needs to understand that."

"No, son, it is," I asserted. "You should never try to dodge the ramifications of your actions." At the very least, maybe he could get a lesson from this.

"This is going to sound insane, but it really isn't your fault. Peridot…" He sighed again. "Peridot did something. She says it was voodoo, but that seems a little farfetched."

I nodded. "It is. I appreciate what you're trying to do for me –"

"But that necklace she gave you… The radzelles' bioluminescence happens to have an effect on human pheromones. It may not have been magic, but from a scientific standpoint, she was still messing with you." He leaned back on his hands, looking a little relieved for getting that off his chest. "You were being manipulated. As soon as I found out, I was going to tell you, but you didn't have the necklace anymore."

I quietly mulled this new information over. That would explain why I didn't feel like myself while I was there, but it still didn't seem like a legitimate excuse for my actions. It didn't sound very believable, anyway. At the very least, maybe I could finally forgive myself for what I did, but as far as Hancock was concerned… "Shaun, don't tell your dad about this."

He furrowed his brow. "Why not?"

"Because. I don't think it's going to help things between us. Our fighting goes a little deeper than just Kudzu Bluff, and if you tell him, it's just going to sound like a crazy, made-up conspiracy to try and win him over. I don't want to risk losing any more credibility with him than I already have. I made this mess, and I can fix it, okay?"

His face was contorted in confused anger. After a moment, he finally replied, "Okay. If that's what you want."

"What about you, hijo? You're not upset with me, are you?"

"No."

I put an arm around him. "I should still apologize to you, anyway. I'm sorry for all the dumb shit you've had to put up with lately. I didn't mean to upset you."

He half-smiled. "You didn't upset me, mom. I'm fine."

"Are you sure? If you have any problems, you should tell me. I'm here to help."

He pulled away from me. "Seriously, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Fix things with dad. I want to see you two happy again."

I flashed him a warm smile. "I'm happy to have _you._ You're a good kid, Shaun."

He reached for his violin once more. "Heh. Yeah." He began playing a slow haunting melody. I put my guitar away and just listened. While I was watching him play, I noticed Hancock sitting beyond him in the woods on the ground with his back against a tree listening to the music discreetly.

A biting December breeze blew through the pine trees, and I pulled the sides of his coat around me tighter. _I wonder how long he has been listening._

He may have heard the whole conversation, he may have heard none of it, but it didn't change anything. That's when I knew how I was going to fix things.

I was going to do nothing.

If you love someone, set them free and all that garbage. He already knew where I stood on things. I had apologized. He knew I was sorry. He knew I wanted him back. I didn't have to convince him of that. I was trying too hard. I was driving him away. When he fell for me before, I wasn't trying at all. I was just going about my business.

And that's what I was going to do.

I looked down at my growing belly. Despite everything, I was still happy about our baby. That's all that really mattered. If he still didn't want to reconcile in the end, then fuck it. Something else he was right about – there's no sense forcing it if it ain't working. If he didn't want to be with me, then why would I want to be in a one-sided relationship? _This shit isn't on me anymore. It's on him._

I resolved to be transparent from then on out. Shaun kept playing as I got up and walked past him to Hancock. The lilting melody could still be heard clearly from there.

Once I was standing before him, he looked up at me slowly. "Hey, Felina."

"Were you eavesdropping on our conversation just then?"

He narrowed his weary eyes at me defensively. "No."

"I don't care if you were. I just need to know how much I need to repeat."

His face softened, and he spoke more gently. "No, Felina. I wasn't listening to your conversation."

I pulled his coat off and handed it to him.

He just looked at me. "What are you doing?"

"Here. Take it."

He hesitantly accepted it, but he didn't put it on. He just draped it over his arm. "What's this about?"

"Shaun knows what's going on between us. You don't have to put on an act for him anymore, okay?"

He almost seemed hurt as he looked down at the coat in his arms. "Why did you tell him?"

"First of all, he's a smart kid. We weren't really fooling him to begin with. Second, you were right. We shouldn't be deceptive towards him. And third… You shouldn't have to do anything you don't want to do. And certainly not on my account. My gift to you," I said, making a slight bow and motioning outward. "Merry Christmas, Hancock." Without looking back, I returned to camp and pulled my bed away from his, bringing it closer to the fire.

Satisfied with myself, I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the sounds of Shaun's violin.


	26. Sweet Chewaukla

Sleep was getting more uncomfortable. I couldn't sleep on my stomach anymore, which was usually my preferred position, and I could only lie on my back for so long before it started to ache. And lying on my side… well, it just wasn't very cozy without having Hancock to lean against. But I wasn't going to let that bother me.

When I woke up before dawn, no longer able to find a suitable position to relax in, I decided I could make good use of that time since the others were still sleeping. I restarted the fire for some extra light and warmth and sat beside it with my blanket around me, digging through my bag for a needle and thread. I had kept the stuff on me in case of a wound that would need emergency stitches but had never had to use it for any reason before.

I had minimal experience with sewing, but mending was one of those skills that all women were expected to have back in the day, so I knew enough to get by. I took the seams out of the wool-blended blazer to my suit. It wasn't difficult since I had already strained them, trying to wear it the previous day. As the morning light started to blush over the distant hilltops, I made quick, far-apart stitches, bringing the now roomier jacket together as rapidly as I could. Once I was finished, I tried it on. It fit much better now, and it was sufficiently warm, but I couldn't help but chuckle at my shoddy craftsmanship. It looked about as stable as Hancock's centuries-old coat that was barely holding together, but it would do. I grinned to myself.

I stood up and looked around. The boys were still out like lights, and the sun hadn't quite made it all the way into the sky. Squinting off in the distance, I could see buildings nestled into the sides of the fairly green hills. We must have been near an actual town. I checked the pip-boy map. Hot Springs. _Nice_.

With that knowledge, I took my blanket and decided to go for a walk to see if I could find some of those infamous springs for myself. I didn't have to go far. Through the trees, tucked into an enclosure of rocks was a steamy pool. _Oh, fuck yeah_. I pulled up the Geiger counter on the pip-boy and held my arm over the spring. No rads. Kicking a boot off, I dipped a toe in. Oh, it was warm. Warm and wonderful. After taking a quick look around and pulling my hair up on top of my head, I disrobed and entered the pool.

I reclined on the warm rocks and soaked in the calming waters. It was the next best thing to a hot shower. Even better, really, since I didn't have to stand to enjoy it. For that, my swollen, achy feet thanked me. As I just kicked back and unwound, the constant chill I had been enduring for the past few days was finally chased away. _If I could just have a glass of wine and a cigarette, I'd be set._

As if the baby could read my thoughts, it kicked at me one hard time.

"Hey, pequeño, calm down. I can wait until after you're born."

I became more relaxed the longer I sat there, but the tranquility would be short lived. I couldn't have been in more than ten minutes when I heard some footsteps out in the woods. My heart beating hard, I ducked behind a boulder jutting out of the pool and peeked over the top through the clouds of steam, on lookout for the source of the noise.

The footsteps had stopped, but I could still hear shuffling behind a tree near the water's edge where I left my clothes. I sat perfectly still and on alert. Whoever was beyond the tree was… peeing. I carefully moved to my things and reached for my gun, pointing it in the direction of the tree. A moment later, the intruder poked their head around the trunk. "Felina?"

I lowered my gun, setting it back on the rocks. "Shit, Hancock, you scared me!"

His brow furrowed as he was fastening his pants. "What are you doing out here?"

I smirked. "What does it look like?"

His eyes trailed down to my floating cleavage, and his face mirrored my smirk while he said nothing.

I deliberately cleared my throat. "My eyes are up here," I remarked, sweeping my hand up in front of my face.

He raised a brow. "So they are."

"What are you doing?" I asked chidingly as he sat on a rock.

"Watching."

"Doesn't that violate the terms of your hiatus somehow?"

"Not that kind of watching. You can't just sit out in the wilderness naked and pregnant." He slid the knife out of his boot and spun it one time before setting it on the rock beside him with his palm resting on top of it. He patted it a couple times. "I'll stand guard while you finish your bath."

"That's not really necessary."

He lit himself a cigarette. "Sure, it is. Just pretend I'm not here."

"That's going to be kind of hard."

He exhaled his smoke. "Hey, if I can do it, so can you."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

A quick burst of smoke snorted out of the hole in his face. "Nothing. Just…" He shifted positions, facing away from me. "Just finish your bath, alright?"

I crossed my arms and stood there for a moment. Yeah, I was warm enough.

I emerged from the spring right beside the rock Hancock was sitting on. He kept facing the woods, but I could tell he was watching me in his peripheral vision as I wrapped the blanket around my wet, naked body and scooped my clothes up.

"You didn't have to get out," he said.

"I was done anyhow."

He watched me intently as I sat beside him and started slipping my boots back on. His fingers fondled the edge of the blanket that was resting between us on the boulder.

Once I was finished, I looked over at him. He seemed completely zoned out, still staring at me. "What?" I asked.

He withdrew his fingers abruptly. "Are you going to be warm enough? I mean, since you're wet and all and it's winter…?"

"Yeah. That's why I brought the blanket." I stood up and rubbed it over me, soaking up the moisture on my skin. I backed up to him and held the edges of the blanket out beside me, cloaking me from his sight. "Here. Hold this."

He grabbed the corners, and while he was holding it between us, I slipped my dress on over my head and put on my new jacket. I turned around and took a step away from him. "You can put it down now."

When he lowered the blanket and his face came into view, he had a silly grin on. I returned his smile. "You good?" I asked him.

"Uh, yeah." He shook his head as he bundled the blanket up into his arms. "Yeah… Let's just go."

I motioned in front of me. "Lead the way."

His face scrunched up. "Oh, no. Ladies first."

I shrugged. "If you insist." I began walking back to camp. A few steps forward, I glanced behind me briefly and caught sight of Hancock walking funny and adjusting his pants. I smirked to myself as I looked forward again.

"Nice jacket," he remarked.

I had to have been swaggering by then. "Thanks."

Once we stepped out of the woods into our camp, I noticed all of our things were packed and ready to go. I turned to Hancock. "Did you do this?"

He shook his head. "First thing I did when I got up was go take a leak, and well, you were there for that." He flipped a mentat into his mouth. "Must have been Shaun."

I surveyed the camp again. "Where _is_ Shaun?"

His voice called to me from beyond the tree line. "Right here." He stepped out from behind a tree with his hands up and his head low.

"What are you doing?" I asked incredulously.

A stranger followed behind Shaun with a gun pointed at him. "He's coming with us," said the guy. "As are you."

Hancock and I drew our weapons, but soon, several other men stepped out of the shadows with guns pointed at us. They didn't look like any raiders I had ever seen. They were all dressed in the plain, dirt-colored clothes of settlers and were all armed with hunting rifles. They were wearing scant leather armor adorned in feathers. One of them had Dogmeat in a harness with a muzzle over his mouth.

Hancock's eyes become fierce, and his shoulders tightened, still aiming his shotgun. "What's the problem, here?"

"Put your guns away and there won't be one."

Hancock snarled. "I don't think so."

The guy that had my son motioned to some of his men, and a moment later, we were swarmed, having our guns taken from us. "Get your things," he said to us with a wave. "Once we return the dog to his cave, you can go. But until then, we'll have to keep an eye on you."

"What?!" I could feel anger boiling just under the surface, but I held it back as best I could.

"I'm done talking for now. As long as this dog is out here, we're all in danger." He turned and started off toward the hills. "Come."

His people began following, and Hancock and I got nudges in our backs from some rifles until we started moving with them. We shouldered our bags and joined the caravan up the hill.

We walked for several miles up a trail toward the buildings I had spied early that morning. Once we made it to settlement, we were led down the main street where people murmured among themselves and glared at us from the sidewalk. Past all the main buildings, the man with Dogmeat took a turn up an incline and started steering us up into more remote wilderness. At the very end of the trail, we made it to a vault entrance labeled "86". When they opened the door, I could see several canine skeletons and remains inside. The man removed Dogmeat's muzzle and locked him in the vault. The poor little pooch was whimpering as the door rolled shut.

The group's leader turned to Hancock and me. "We'll give you back your guns now, and you're free to go if you aren't going to cause any trouble."

I gave Hancock a crazy, questioning expression. He responded with a stern look and a nod. He addressed the leader. "Yeah, we'll take our guns back now."

The guy glared at us leerily as his men tossed our weapons back. "All is well, now. We are not unreasonable folk. If you remain friendly, you can stay in Sleepy Water and rest up as long as you need to before you leave."

I glared back. "When will we be getting our dog back?"

"He's not yours, Ina," he told me firmly. "That dog belongs to the old woman in the cave, and he is the only thing keeping the world from ending." He motioned outward. "Go."

"Whoa, whoa, what madness is this?!" I exclaimed. "That dog belongs to my son. We brought it from halfway across the country. There's no way it belongs to some old woman _here_."

"Your ramblings are futile, Ina."

"Ina? Ina?! Where are you getting that from?! It's _Fel_ ina!"

He looked down at my stomach. "Ina means 'mother', stranger."

I blinked rapidly. "Oh…"

"That dog has a divine purpose, and it is not up to me. He stays or we all die."

"You're insane…!"

Hancock already had his hands on my shoulders, guiding me away. "We'll just be going now, Mr…?"

"You can call me Paytah."

He kept pushing me forward as he looked over his shoulder. "Right. Paytah. Sorry for the trouble. We'll see you around."

Everyone continued to point their rifles at us as we traveled down the incline.

I was fuming, and Shaun looked like he was fighting tears. Every time I tried to speak up, Hancock would shush me until they were out of earshot. Finally far enough away, he let go of me. "I need you to calm down, Felina."

I threw a hand back out toward the hilltop. "But Dogmeat –"

"We'll work it out. I promise. But it ain't like we were prepared to do anything right then and there. Let's just go back to town, get a room, and we'll figure it out from there, okay?" He put a hand on Shaun's shoulder. "Okay?"

We both nodded reluctantly.

He exhaled. "Alright, then." He pointed forward. "To Sleepy Water."

* * *

Back on the main street, people were less interested in us without our armed escorts. Of all the prewar buildings still in use, a great deal of them were bathhouses. I picked the one that had a Spanish Colonial flair to it, and we walked inside.

The interior was the most well-preserved and restored of all the prewar establishments we had visited on our journey. It felt like I had stepped out of a time machine to the past. Laid back muzak played softly over a speaker system, and a chipper woman in a service uniform with perfect make up and a shiny silver nametag that said "Flo" was sitting at a reception desk right inside. "Can I help you?"

Hancock stepped forward, taking command of the situation. "We're looking for a room for rent."

The woman smiled politely. "I can definitely help you with that." She started tapping away at a terminal in front of her, and after some deliberation between her and Hancock, there was an exchange of caps for keys. "We know you have your choice of hotels on Bathhouse Row, and we're glad that you chose us," she said with prescribed delight.

We walked past large, steaming public baths and swimming pools to some stairs. Once on the top floor, Hancock led us to our room and unlocked it, swinging the door open and switching the light on. The accommodations were luxurious and spacious compared to the room we had been huddled in back in Kudzu Bluff. There was a separate living room area, a large bathroom straight ahead, and a bedroom to either side.

As we all dropped our things to the floor, I turned to Shaun. "Who do you want to bunk with, hijo?"

His mouth opened wordlessly as he looked back and forth between us. "I… uh…"

Hancock winced and shut the door behind him. "You don't have to pick, killer." He crossed the room to the couch and hopped on it.

I shook my head. "John –"

"I don't want to hear another word about it, Felina," he said as he kicked his boots off.

"You're just going to sleep on the couch?"

He tossed his legs onto the cushions, reclining with his arms behind his head. "Yep."

All of my gut reactions would have just complicated things, so I tossed them all out. "Okay, well that's settled." I picked up a brochure standing on the table by the door and examined it. It was for the in-house café. "I'm going to get some breakfast, and we can start brainstorming how to get Dogmeat out of the clink."

Claiming he wasn't hungry, Hancock stayed behind while Shaun and I went back downstairs to the café. When the server came, I ordered enough food for three people and set my menu down, looking at Shaun. "And what do _you_ want, hijo?"

He looked at out server. "Eggs."

"How do you want them?" she asked.

"Cooked."

"Okaaay…" She jotted something down on her pad. "And what else?"

"Just eggs. Lots of them."

I grimaced as the server raised an eyebrow at him. "Sure thing, hon."

While we were waiting for our food, I started contemplating Dogmeat's predicament. "Okay," I began. "Those armed men didn't follow us down the hill when we left, so I think it's safe to assume the vault entrance is being guarded by some, if not, all of them."

Shaun sulked. "So simply going back later and opening the vault ourselves is probably not an option."

"Maybe there's another entrance they don't know about."

"I doubt that. If that were the case, I don't think there would have been so many expired dogs by the vault door. Instinct would have had them find it to escape."

"Good point." I noticed a tall, elegant teenage girl with long black hair at a nearby table by herself eyeballing Shaun. I nudged him and brought his attention to her.

He rolled his eyes. "Stop, mom."

"Hey, they're not all conniving like Peridot," I attested.

"They're also not all interested in me, either. She's much older than me, mom."

I casually glanced at her again. "Not by that much…"

"Yeah, it could be much worse," he mumbled almost inaudibly. "Watch this." He waved at the girl. "Excuse me," he called to her.

Her eyes widened when she realized she had been caught looking. "Yes?"

"Are you staring at us because of the way we were brought into town at gunpoint?"

She blushed a little. "Yeah, actually."

He turned to me and gave me a "told-you-so" face. "See?"

I frowned. "Shaun…"

The girl got up and came over to our table with her coffee mug. "Is it okay if I sit here?" she asked, already pulling out a chair.

Shaun made no attempt to hide his surprise. "Uh… Sure."

"My name is Winona," she said, offering her hand.

"Shaun. This is my mom Felina."

"Nice to meet you," she said with a small but pleasant smile. "So was that your dog that Paytah took?"

"Yeah. What do they want with my dog?"

The corners of her mouth drew downward. "It's this stupid ancient legend. The elders believe that there's an old woman in that cave weaving a rug. She only stops to stir her stew pot, and when she does, her dog shakes out all the weaving she just did. So, the dog is our savior, because if the old woman ever finishes the rug, the world will end."

I looked at her with half-lidded eyes. "That _is_ stupid. The world already ended. Trust me."

"Yeah," she said with the same disenchanted look as me. "I know. Unlike everyone else around here, I've been outside town before. Because things are still so good here, the elders don't believe me. They keep every dog they can find up there, so there are never any dogs around here unless outsiders bring one. It's animal cruelty is what it is. Well, everyone has been in an uproar about our safety lately since Sleepy Water has been so long without a dog in the cave, and to make matters worse, some Children of Atom missionaries started sniffing around here while the last dog was still alive…"

My eyes fully opened. "Children of Atom? Fffffudge."

"You've heard of them?"

"Oh, yeah. They worship radiation and all that mess."

"They're total nut jobs, right? They keep trying to convert the community to their 'religion,' but no one here is buying into that nonsense. Their refusal to accept no for an answer has everyone nervous, thus the kidnapping of your dog."

Just then, our food arrived on one of the big trays that require a stand. The waitress set all my plates in front of me, and I immediately dug in. She gave the girl a grin. "Hey, Winona. You want your usual over here?"

"Yes, please."

The server set a mountain of scrambled eggs in front of my downtrodden son before topping off Winona's coffee. "Coming right up."

Once she was gone, Shaun lifted his head back to Winona. "So what you're telling me is the only way to get Dogmeat back is to get rid of the Children of Atom in the area?"

"No. If the Children of Atom were to go away, they would just attribute that to the dog protecting them and would still want to keep him. What I have in mind is much simpler and should stop them from trapping anymore dogs if all goes well."

Shaun lit up. "What's that?"

"We weave a rug."

He furrowed his brow. "Whaaat?" His reaction was skeptical and disheartened.

"No, hear me out. The legend talks about a rug made from pine needles, so no one around here has a pine needle rug, know what I'm saying? It would mean the end of the world if they did. So we weave one and present it to the elders and the whole town at the New Year ceremony as proof that a pine needle rug _isn't_ the end of the world, therefore, they don't need a dog to shake it out. See what I mean?"

Shaun's eyes got wide. "Did you say _pine needles_?"

I considered her plan as I moved on to plate number three. "I don't know about that," I remarked between bites. "Still believing in that old legend sounds pretty crazy, but these people aren't crazy enough to accept what the Children of Atom are selling, so they aren't that far gone. What makes you think they'll believe you, even with the rug?"

"No, mom," Shaun said, suddenly sincere, "I think the pine needle rug plan holds water."

"What?!" I glowered with a mouthful.

Winona turned to Shaun with a glowing smile. "So you'll help me weave the rug?"

He started poking at his eggs. "Yeah. Yeah, I will."

The girl clasped her hands together. "Good! As soon as we're done eating, you and I can go out into the woods and start collecting pine needles."

"Yay," he replied sarcastically while Winona flagged the waitress down for more coffee.


	27. A Stranger

Shaun and Winona assured me they could handle things on their own. After breakfast, I went back up to the room to tell Hancock about their plan, but he wasn't there. I went back out into the bathhouse to track him down. When I found him, he was skinny-dipping in the hot springs on the first floor. He was kicked back with a martini, his eyes closed and unaware I was there.

I stood over him with a hand on my tummy in quiet smugness for a few moments. "Envious of my bath this morning, Hancock?"

He slowly opened his eyes and gazed at me lazily. "I wouldn't call it envy. That implies it ain't something I can have." He held his arms outward. "And yet, here I am."

"Well, good for you." I proceeded to divulge to him the details from breakfast, and he listened patiently with a cavalier smile. Once I was finished, I remarked playfully, "So you can _relax_ now. It's all taken care of."

He took a sip from his drink. "See? I told you we'd figure it out."

"We? We figured it out without you. You got a mouse in your pocket or something?" I darted my eyes down to the water briefly. "I guess not, since you're not wearing anything."

"My eyes are up here," he said with mocking sarcasm, throwing my words back in my face.

"You know, it was relatively secluded where I was soaking this morning. It's awful brazen of you to strip in a public bathhouse."

"What's the matter? Afraid someone else is going to catch a glimpse of the goods and be unable to control themselves?"

"That doesn't sound like anything I would be concerned about since we're on hiatus."

"Oh, don't get your lack of panties in a twist, Felina," he said as his eyes slid to the hemline of my skirt hovering over the edge of the spa. "I'm just fucking with you."

I pulled the flared fabric closer around my legs. "Look, you. If you're just going to –"

A uniformed attendant came over and interrupted our conversation. "I'm sorry ma'am, but this section of the bathhouse is men only."

I folded my arms. "Well, that's terribly offensive…"

"We have a section just for ladies, if you like."

I glared at Hancock while retorting, "And if I don't like?"

Hancock held his martini glass up. "Hey, I ain't the mayor of _this_ town. I don't make the rules."

"Y'know what, pendejo? That's fine." I started marching away from the poolside.

"Going to the ladies' side?" Hancock remarked snidely.

"No."

"Where are you off to, then?" he asked, sounding slightly apprehensive.

"Me?" I stopped and turned to him one final time. "I'm going to go get a massage."

Anger washed over his face and he almost tipped his drink. "Where some stranger lays hands all over you? I don't like that idea."

"Oh, they're professionals, Hancock. You have nothing to worry about," I remarked, already leaving. "Besides, why should you care? We're separated, remember?"

"Yeah, _separated_. Not _divorced_. That doesn't mean you can just… "

I kept walking.

He called after me defensively, "Well, that's just fine by me, Felina!"

After scheduling my massage, I was directed to the second floor where I changed into a robe and laid on a table specially designed for pregnancy behind some curtains. I didn't realize how badly I needed a massage until I had one… Fucking… Just fucking… Every muscle in my body was tense and achy when I started, and every muscle was rubbery and relaxed by the time I was done. This sort of treatment should be mandatory when pregnant, that's all I can say.

And as far as Hancock's jealousy over it was concerned, I just found it delicious. I never even laid eyes on the guy doing all the rubbing, and my mind maaay have been fantasizing it was Hancock the whole time, but he didn't need to know that.

Once it was over, I was told I could stay and relax on the table for a while if I'd like to before leaving. I managed to murmur some kind of acknowledgement of the offer and continued to lay there limply in decadent bliss.

While I was busy trying to regain the ability to walk again, the girl at the next table over pushed the curtain aside and addressed me. "Hey."

"Mm-Hmmy," I slurred.

"Was that you doing all that moaning?"

"Was I?" I turned my head towards her. She was pale and frail looking, probably about mid-twenties, and had a Cowichan-patterned scarf tied on her head, covering her hair.

"Ohhh, yeah," she said with a grin. I saw her gaze slide to my belly momentarily. "Hey, that's okay, though. That just means you really needed it."

I smiled. "Yeah. I did."

"I'm Ambrosia, by the way."

"Felina."

She had a wild look in her sparkling hazel eyes. "What are you doing after this, Felina?"

After we exited the massage area, Ambrosia and I went down to the women's section of the spa. No one else was there. We acquired some cold drinks and took them to the edge of the waters. With a bikini on underneath, Ambrosia removed her robe and entered the springs.

I paused in thought for a moment. I didn't have a swim suit. As Hancock had so observantly pointed out, I didn't even have any underwear… What little I had to begin with always somehow ended up being sacrificed to his knife. Not that any of it would fit me at the point anyhow…Fuck it. I let my robe drop to the floor and stepped in naked.

Ambrosia raised her brow. "Wow, you aren't shy," she said with a slight smile.

"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?"

She waved a hand outward. "By all means, do what you do. Life is for living."

"Hey, this is what they expected, right? Separating the pools by sex…"

Ambrosia pointed to the archway opposite the one we came in. "They have a co-ed one down the hall."

I furrowed my brow. "Oh."

Ambrosia chuckled. "Fuck it, though."

I spread my arms across the edge of the spa and leaned back. "Indeed." I was starting to like this girl.

"So, I haven't seen you around Sleepy Water," she began. "Are you just visiting?"

"Just passing through, really. Why? Do you live here?"

"No, not really, but I'm on a bit of an extended stay. See, I have this… condition…" She unraveled the scarf from her head, revealing the patchy, falling out red hair it had concealed. "You could say I'm self-medicating with the springs."

"Oh, wow. Umm, how's that working out for you?"

"For the condition? It's not really, but I'm having fun, so it's not a total waste." She wrapped the scarf back around her head. "I've done my part. It's in God's hands now."

I shrugged. "That's one way to look at it."

"So is your husband here, too, or are you on a getaway without him?"

"My husband?"

She blushed a little. "Sorry. I mean, your partner. I noticed the wedding band on your finger, and I just assumed because of the pregnant belly and all that you had a husband."

"Oh." I looked down at my left hand. "No, you're right. I have a husband, and yes, he's here. Somewhere. We're kind of on the outs right now."

"Sorry if I am being too nosy. You just seem like a very open person."

"Hell, I'm already naked. Ask away."

"Alright then." She started swirling the stir stick in her drink, and the ice in it clinked against the sides of the glass. "So was it something he did or something you did?"

"Something I did. I've apologized as much as humanly possible, and it's been a couple weeks, but he's still not ready to reconcile."

"Well." She sipped from the glass in her hand. "Is he still wearing his ring?"

"Yeah."

"Then I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

I smiled. "I hadn't really thought about that."

"Besides. You seem like a really nice person –"

"Yeah, when the hormones aren't raging."

She let out a small laugh under her breath. "At any rate, he'd be a fool to let you go."

"Thanks, Ambrosia." I was uncharacteristically comforted by the stranger's words. "So what about you? If you don't live here, where do you call home?"

"Oh, I don't know these days," she said with a sigh as she leaned her head back. "I'm originally from the west though."

"Really? So am I. What part?"

"New Vegas."

"Really?!" I could hardly hold my excitement. "That's exactly where we're going! What's it like now?"

"I wouldn't know what it's like currently. I was a teenager when I left, but last time I was there, there was a lot of struggle for control going on between several different groups. It was a downright mess." She brought her face forward again. "But don't let that deter you from going. It was still a pretty fun place, and that was years ago. They may have sorted things out by now."

We hung out the rest of the day and got to know each other better. By the time we parted, she had really grown on me. We made plans to meet up again the next day.

It was night when I went back to the room and stretched out on the couch with an issue of _Picket Fences_ from the coffee table. Shaun came in a little while later, dragging ass and looking exhausted.

I laid the magazine down in my lap. "How's the rug coming?"

He took his shirt off and shook it, raining pine needles on the floor. "I don't want to talk about it." He slumped off to his room and collapsed face first on the bed. I picked my magazine back up, and within moments, I heard him snoring loudly. I went to his room and removed his shoes for him, tucking him in.

As I came back into the living room, closing his door behind me, Hancock was walking in.

"Hey, Hancock."

He sat down on the couch and glared at me as he began removing his outer layers of clothes. "How was your _massage_?"

"Oh, fantastic," I said with no sarcasm. I started across the room to a closet. "How was your day?"

"Fine."

"What did you do?"

"Does it matter?"

"That's fine. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." I pulled a blanket out of the closet and tossed it at him. He grumbled as it hit his head, knocking his hat off and covering his face. "Good night, Hancock."

"Yeah, 'night," he said, his muffled voice barely audible to me from under the blanket as I closed my bedroom door.

* * *

The next day, in the ladies' wing, I had a two piece swimsuit I had bought at the gift shop.

Ambrosia grinned at me when I took my robe off and she saw the new suit. "Blue suits you," she remarked automatically.

I beamed as I stepped into the water. "Thanks."

She was still standing on the edge with her robe on. "I counted on you going nude again, so I didn't bring a suit this time."

"Oh, no! Really?"

She laughed as she dropped her robe, revealing her bikini. "No, but I had you going for a minute, didn't I?"

I splashed her. "Oh, fuck you!"

She giggled and got in with me.

Soon, Ambrosia and I had a routine. Every morning, after breakfast, we had massages and facials, and then down to the springs for juice before lunch. A catnap after, a swim in the pool before dinner, and then back to the springs. Back in the room every night, Shaun would come in tired with an achy back from leaning over the weaving, and Hancock would come in drunk and high, progressively more so as the days went on. We would have some catty banter and then, I would leave him on the couch and go to bed.

This went on for almost a week. One night, when Hancock stumbled in after a night of partying and found me reclined on his couch with a copy of _Lying, Congressional Style_ , he made a clumsy waving motion at me.

"Up," he commanded. He looked like he could hardly stand.

"Excuse me?" I slowly sat up, tossing the book to the table.

He sighed, leaning unsteadily on the table by the door. "Iss nuffin person'l. I jus' need to lay down and yer on my bed."

I stood up and moved to the side. "Be my guest."

He collapsed facedown onto the couch.

"You sure have been partying hard lately," I remarked.

"Yeah, well…ya know."

I sat across from him on the coffee table. "You know, I've been thinking… That's not really a sustainable lifestyle when you're taking care of an infant."

He slowly turned his head toward me, sobriety sparking in his eyes. "Whuuut are you getting at?"

"Well, I've been considering what you said. You know, about your willingness to be involved with the baby. And I was just thinking, if you really don't want to be together, I feel like it would be unfair of me to force you to stick around."

"You ain't forcing me to do anything, Felina. You can't."

"I'm perfectly capable of raising a child on my own. And I have Shaun…"

"Wh- Wha- Wait a minute… You think you can just…" He groaned and rubbed at his head as he sat up. "Why are you doing this right now?"

"I'm not doing anything, Hancock. I'm just letting you know, you can go back to Goodneighbor if that's what you really want. I won't guilt trip you about it or speak disparagingly about you towards the baby or anything like that. You're free. This is what you wanted, right? You've only stayed this long because I'm pregnant, but I want you to know, I'll be fine. You don't have to feel obligated. I just want you to be happy."

"You do?"

"Yep." I patted his head as I stood up. "Good night, Hancock."

The next morning was New Year's Eve, and Hancock was already awake when I came out of the bedroom.

"You're up early," I said as I gathered my things to leave.

"Yeah, well, I didn't sleep much last night."

"Hangover keep you up?"

"I had a lot on my mind," he remarked quietly as he headed to the door, reaching for the handle.

"You going to that huge New Year's party tonight I've been hearing about?"

"Yeah." He started out the door. "Don't wait up for me."

Shaun and Winona were going to be working overtime to get the rug finished in time to present it to council the next day. Because of this, I anticipated that my end-of-the-day soak with Ambrosia that night was our last. After a few minutes of comfortable silence while we just enjoyed the steamy pool, I interrupted the peace. "So this is probably my final night here. If all goes as it should, I'll be leaving tomorrow."

She gave me a wistful smile. "I knew it wouldn't last forever, but I'm happy for the time we had together."

"Me, too. It's been really nice."

"I never asked you…" Ambrosia nodded at my stomach. "Is this your first?"

"Second, but not from this marriage. My first, Shaun, is twelve. His father isn't with us anymore."

"I see," she said contemplatively. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"It's okay. I'm at peace with it now."

"I've never been pregnant, but I love babies." She smiled, coming closer and reaching a hand toward my stomach. "May I?"

"Sure. Go right ahead."

She carefully placed a palm on my belly and her body instantly went rigid, her eyes filled with surprise.

"Can you feel it kicking? It's wild, isn't it?"

She quickly brought her other hand to my belly as well with a serious look on her face. Her eyes began to roll backwards until only the whites were showing.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"Rosalita…" she whispered.

I held back a gasp. "What did you say?"

She pulled her hands away and moved back to her spot. She didn't say anything, just kept staring ahead.

After waiting long enough for a response, I spoke again. "Did you say 'Rosalita'?"

Her answer was delayed. "Yes. I did."

"Why...?"

"That's her name, isn't it?"

"How… how can you know it's a girl?"

"She's in _your_ body. Can't you tell?"

"No…"

"You have a very special child there, Felina."

"Thanks?" I could have blown it all off as eccentricity or run-of-the-mill crazy if it wasn't for the fact that she had said the name I had picked out. Still, there had to be some kind of explanation. "Did Hancock put you up to this?"

"No, but I will admit, I haven't been entirely honest with you."

"How's that?"

"I don't have a 'condition.' I've just been exposed to a lot of radiation…"

I started putting the pieces together. "You're a Child of Atom, aren't you?" I asked with stony irritation.

She blinked slowly. "Yes. A missionary."

_Goddammit._

"The whole 'condition story' is just my cover while I'm here doing His work since the townspeople aren't too crazy about us. But I know you understand. You're different. I knew you were when I first met you, and now… I'm sure of it. You're carrying a baby with a gift from Atom."

"No, no, that's not it." I kept shaking my head. "Did I not mention that the baby's father is a ghoul?"

"Heh, yeah, I knew it when I touched you. Impressive, but that has little to do with it."

As soon as I found out she was a Child of Atom, I was immediately skeptical of her "psychic" claptrapping. She had had days to gather enough information from me for a hot reading. Parlor tricks are what they are. Parlor tricks that religious nuts use to make their beliefs seem all mystical and cryptic…

She was looking out into nothingness. "The lighthouse… She was conceived at the lighthouse…"

_Then again…_

She suddenly looked back at me. "That place was a holy spot for the Children."

How could she know that? I tried to play off my surprise. "Bullshit."

"You know it to be true, Felina. Think about it. Rosalita loves radiation, doesn't she?" She reached for my belly again, but I was too deep in thought to really care. She closed her eyes. "That heathen obelisk… Your husband's radioactive fluids…Heh, she loved that more than _you_ did…" She kept running her hands over my round stomach. "Did you know that when you burn tobacco, it gives off small amounts of radiation? She loved that cigarette, too…"

I started backing away from her, but she followed. "You're insane!" I suddenly thought about the dream I had where the baby was feral. "Are you trying to insinuate she's going to born a ghoul?"

"No, of course not! Not only is that impossible, but that's not what I would call a 'gift from Atom.' Atom hates ghouls. Their ghoulified state is punishment from Him."

"So all you're saying is she loves radiation?"

"It's not just a love for radiation. It strengthens and heals her. She has the ability to soak up infinite amounts of Atom's glory, making her able to spread his word like… like… She must be some sort of prophet or something! She is definitely chosen by Him."

"Oh, for fuck's sake…"

"It's funny, isn't it?" she said with a demented smile. "You've been trying to protect her from radiation all this time when you didn't have to. The radaway…" She removed her hands from me once more. "She hated that, didn't she?"

I just stared at her, slack-jawed, thinking about how worked up she got…how strangely it burned.

"Didn't she?"

I wasn't ready to admit it, but she was making sense. I didn't believe for a minute that the baby was chosen by Atom, but all the stuff she was saying about the radiation…

Just as her ramblings were starting to coerce me, several men dressed like the guards Paytah brought with him to apprehend us in the woods entered the spa room with guns drawn on Ambrosia. "Out of the pool, pagan."

She calmly and willfully complied, raising her hands over her head and stepping out of the water, completely unshook by them.

"We know what you're up to, Ambrosia," a man said as he cuffed her hands behind her back.

Another one of the men picked up my robe, holding it out to me. "You should go back to your room, ma'am."

I emerged and snatched the robe from him. "Where are you taking her?" I asked as I tied the cloth closed.

"Jail, for now."

"And what is she being charged with?"

"She's guilty of espionage and conspiracy against Sleepy Waters."

"You mean she's _charged_ with espionage and conspiracy. You don't know she's guilty until it's proven in a court of law."

The men had a good laugh at that. "Simmer down, lady, and just go back to your room."

"No! This woman has a right to a fair trial!"

He chuckled again. "And just who do you think you are?"

"Her lawyer!"

"Her what?!"

"You heard me."

Ambrosia frowned. "You don't have to do that, Felina. Atom will protect me."

The man jerked her closer as though she had been resisting when she had been doing the exact opposite. "We have reason to believe that this woman was sent here to irradiate the springs."

"That's ridiculous!" I looked toward Ambrosia pleadingly. "Isn't it? You wouldn't do that would you?"

Ambrosia only stared in deadpan silence.

"Would you?!"

She still didn't respond.

A foreboding shiver shook through my body. "What's going to happen to her?"

"Well, the elders will decide that in the morning, but most likely execution." They started leading her towards the exit. "Good night, miss. Happy New Year."


	28. The Nurse Who Loved Me

I went back to the room and found it empty. I changed into dry clothes and paced the living area, trying to sort out everything that had happened.

I was trying to decide if I believed Ambrosia's assessment of the baby. If I did, it certainly didn't make me a follower of Atom, but would it mean I was as crazy as one of them? It made perfect sense, though. I briefly considered smoking a cigarette "for research purposes," but ultimately decided against it, since my motives on that weren't entirely pure. Besides, I had pretty much already made up my mind that it was true.

 _Rosalita_. I smiled to myself for a moment.

And regardless of Ambrosia's ramblings, she had been a good friend for the past week, religious kook or no. Was she really there to irradiate the water in the name of Atom? And if that was her original plan, she hadn't, so I should still try to save her, right?

A little before midnight, Hancock came crashing in with reckless abandon, leaving the door swinging loudly on its hinges. "Daddy's home!" He wobbled across the room, obviously fucked up, and tripped over his own feet, falling face first to the tile floor. Upon touchdown, his hat flew several feet away across the room.

"John!" I rushed to his side.

He rolled to the side and haphazardly grabbed hold of my dress with both hands. He had a little blood beading up on his brow from his tumble. He was too heavy and unstable for me to lift on my own in my condition, and he was putting forth no effort to get back to his feet. As soon as I quit trying to pull him up, his grip on me brought me to the ground next to him with a grunt.

"Fffelinaaa…" he moaned pathetically.

"Are you okay?!"

His eyes closed most of the way as his lips slid into a wide, lazy smile. "I-i-i…am fine, love." He replied in a lilting sing-song.

"Love?" I felt a little flutter in my stomach, and it wasn't Rosalita.

"I-i-i may have had a little too much to drink…and maybe a liiitle too much med-x, but otherwise…fine."

My brow curled in concern. "How much med-x?"

"Three or five doses. Nothing I can't handle. I've done waaay more than that before."

"While drinking?"

"That's what it takes. I have a pretty high tolerance, ya know. And I maaay have smoked summa that weed… I think that's what, uh…what sent me over. But it doesn't matter, love." He put his arms around me. "You're here. That's all that matters."

As much as I was enjoying being touched by him, I knew it didn't mean anything after hearing about the extent of his bender. "C'mon, querido." I pulled myself up and held both my arms out to him. "Let's get you to bed."

He sat up and locked his arms to mine, but as soon as he started pulling, I fell to my ass again in front of him. "John…"

"I'm so sorry, love. I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry…. Are you okay?" He placed his palms on my legs, rubbing them up and down. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No. No, I'm fine." I smiled at him warmly. "You're going to have to get yourself up on your own, though."

"Good idea, love." He went face first to the floor again between my legs.

"John!"

"I'm okay," he said, muffled by the area rug. "I meant to do that. See?" He pushed his head under the folds of my skirt.

My hands raced down, pushing against his head. "What are you doing?!"

"This." He nudged his head under me, wedging under my ass and tossing me over his shoulders onto his back.

"John!"

He lifted me up, and I was riding backwards on him as he crawled on all fours across the floor to my room. I held onto his hips for dear life as he brought us the entire distance to my bed. Despite my concern and surprise, an involuntary giggle slipped out of me.

He stopped by the bedframe and collapsed to the floor once more. "This is your stop, love."

I slid off of him and sat on the edge of the mattress.

He sat up once I was off of him. "Okay… Now, how to get up…"

I brought my legs onto the mattress and held my arms out to him again. "I might be able to help, now."

"No-no-no…" he said, shaking his head. "I got this. I don't want to hurt you or the baby." He grabbed hold of the bedpost and pulled himself to his knees. "Almost," he said with a strained grunt as he pulled himself the rest of the way up, flopping down in front of me on his back. He started waving his feet. "My boots…?"

"Oh, sure." I reached down his legs and wiggled the shoes off his feet, letting each one fall to the floor beside us.

"Thank you, love," he said with another lazy smile. He was dropping the affectionate moniker with more frequency than I had ever witnessed, but there was no danger of me tiring of it. "My hat?"

"Already off, amor."

"Oh, good." He started shimmying out of his jacket. After some struggling, he managed to get his arms free, still lying on the coat. He untied the flag-belt and let the loose ends lay on either side of him. He pulled his shirt out of the band of his pants and started clumsily unbuttoning it. That's how I knew he was really fucked up – being nimble with buttons was one of his many small talents.

Once he had reached the bottom, he splayed the sides out. "Better." He folded his hands on his torso.

I scooted to the head of the bed, sitting up beside him.

He looked over at me tenderly. "I love you, Felina."

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn't heard that in a while. "I love you, too, John." It felt as good to say it back as it did to hear it. _Better enjoy this while I can_. I caressed his cheek. "Do you need anything?"

He was smiling as he shook his head. "Just you." He reached for my face with both hands, suddenly bringing me down to his and kissing me lovingly. His fingers weaved up my cheeks and into my hair, senselessly holding me there as if I wouldn't want this. I felt my whole world falling into place as his passion for the act grew. His lips soothed me, and I was spellbound, enwrapped in a dense ribbon of profound elation. My hands gripped at him, sliding down to the bare skin of his chest, and I breathed in a solaced sigh, drawing in his scent and taste more deeply for me to revel in.

I felt no need to stop him as his tongue delicately pushed past my lips. Rosalita happily soaked up the rads in confirmation of my suspicions, squirming noticeably in what seemed more like a dance than just random kicking. Her happiness only magnified mine. Hancock didn't know that the radiation wasn't harmful to her, but he was too far gone to be faulted. As soon as that thought hit me, though, I suddenly felt guilty for allowing this to take place. I pulled out of our kiss. "John…"

"I'm so sorry! I forgot! The baby…"

"No, it's okay, amor." I petted his head. "Everything's fine. You just need to rest."

His hands wandered down to my massive belly. "You've gotten so big, Felina." He kept stroking the round curves. "I can't believe it… Soon… Our baby… Oh, my god, Felina, I love you so much."

A small tear slipped down my cheek. I wanted to hear those words so badly, but not like this. "John, you're not feeling well."

"No, I already told ya, I feel fine, love." He looked up at me again, and I could see the intense adoration in his eyes transform to desire once more. His hand moved back to my head, brushing the hair from my face. "I want you…" he said in a breathless whisper.

"John –"

"No, I know what you're thinking. I remember what I said about being separated, but that's all bullshit. I was just trying to protect myself – and the baby – from getting hurt, but this hurts more, Felina. Being without you… That _is_ pain. Even when you eventually decide you don't want me anymore – which I know you will –

"That's not true, amor –"

"It's still worth it to get every last moment with you I still can. I need you, Felina. You're my sun, my moon, and my stars. You keep my world spinning, and life is meaningless without you. Please, make love to me again…" He reached for the front of my dress where the buttons would be if I was wearing the blue one. His confused fingers fumbled for a moment as his face scrunched up into perplexity. "This is my fault," he said, withdrawing his hand in defeat.

"No, it's mine, querido."

He sighed, resting his palms on my sides.

I wiped away the blood droplets on his brow with my fingertip. "Do you still want to know why I love you?"

He shook his head. "There ain't a good enough reason in the world for you to love me, and I know it. I'm just lucky that you think you do." He traced my curves upward, squeezing me as his hands came to a stop. "Just make love to me, so I can pretend you really do for a little while."

I had fallen for the brick-wall facade he had employed to try and convince me he was better off without me, even though he didn't really believe it himself. I had forgotten how vulnerable he really was, and seeing him bare himself like this to me only made me love him more. "You don't have to pretend, mi amor. I really do love you."

He smiled weakly. "You don't have to say that. I don't know what I did to deserve this." His hands careened down to the fringe of my skirt. "How 'bout I make you feel good, love?" he said as he slowly pushed the edges up my legs. "Make it worth your trouble…" The feel of his fingertips brushing up my skin started to compel me.

I wanted it… Oh, how I wanted it…

Even though I knew it wouldn't be dangerous to the baby, I still felt like it was wrong with Hancock the way he was and the way things had been. He wanted me to show him I love him without sex, so that was what I was going to do. "It's no trouble, mi amor." I held my hands over the fabric, stopping him from pushing it any higher. "I can tell you why if you promise to try and remember in the morning."

His face glazed over with worry. "If that's what you really want, love. I'll do anything you want."

I took a breath and looked in his eyes. "I love you, John. I love the way you sympathize with everyone and strive to do right. I love the way you are so patient and concerned with Shaun…"

"He's my son, too, Felina."

I smiled. "I love the way you are adamant about that. I love the way you give no fucks about the small shit. I love the way you aren't scared of anything and take care of business. I love how dangerous you are. I love the way that you are just yourself, all the time, with no remorse, like the way you wear that ridiculous colonial get-up, regardless of its level of appropos."

"Hey, it ain't ridiculous!"

"You're right!" My smile widened. "It's just sexy. Fuck what anyone else thinks!"

"Damn right, sister!"

"I love the way you love me, and I'm not just talking about physically, although props for that."

"Thanks for recognizing true talent."

"You're most certainly welcome. But you love me…" I could feel myself slipping into that dreamy, enchanted level of mesmerized that was easily reflected in my voice. "You are so sweet to me. You are considerate and thoughtful. You say the most beautiful things and make me feel adored, sometimes even when I don't deserve it. You're the best partner anyone could ever ask for. I'm the lucky one, John. Not you."

Why couldn't I find those words when he asked for them before? _Damn…_

His eyes shimmered with subdued tears. "You don't mean that…"

I cradled his face and looked into his shadowy eyes. "It's all true. You already made it clear just now that you would want me anyway, mi amor. I have no reason to make that shit up."

He smiled. "Felina…" A small tear trickled down his face. "I don't know what to say."

I kissed his tear away. "You don't have to say anything. Just hold me." I laid down beside him.

He cautiously wrapped his arms around me and sighed. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For loving me."

A satisfied smile stretched across my face. "I can't help it."


	29. No Hopes, No Surprises

The next morning, I woke up in Hancock's arms for the first time in a long time with a smile affixed to my face.

His raven eyes fluttered open and looked straight to me.

"Good morning, querido," I said, still donning my idiotic smile.

"I had this dream about you and the baby…" he said with a dramatic pause. "The baby had already been born, but you didn't tell me so you could keep torturing me with this aloof act you've been putting on recently. It left me feeling…used…" He grunted, rubbing the side of his head. He began to sit up and button his shirt with his back to me. "What happened last night, Felina?"

"What?" I sat up, too.

"How did I end up in your bed? We didn't do anything, did we?"

"No! No, you came here on your own, and I just took care of you." See? It was wise of me to stop things before they went too far. Good job, Felina.

"I'm sorry for intruding on you like that," he remarked flatly.

"It was no problem," I assured him with quiet disappointment. Wise, but… What difference did it make if he didn't remember?

He looked down while he slid his boots on. "I had this other dream…" He paused again in recollection. "You said all these charming, sweet things to me. But I know it was just a dream."

"Maybe it was a dream." I scooted to the edge of the bed and sat next to him. "Maybe not."

He turned his head to me, inches away from my face. We both held that position for a while, neither one of us saying a word.

"It had to be a dream," he said, finally breaking both the silence and our stare as he put on his coat. "If I hadn't already smoked the last of it, I'd swear off the weed," he remarked off-handedly. "It really messes with me. At least when I mix it, anyway…"

"John," I said with a sigh. "Regardless of what you think may or may not have dreamed last night, you've blown your cover."

His face took on an instant look of confusion. "What's that?"

"You still love me. You made that very clear last night."

His response was delayed. "I never said I don't love you, Felina."

"Wait, so what are you saying?"

"I still ain't entirely convinced that we'll work," he said with pessimistic candor as he swallowed his morning mentat.

"Jesus, John! You can't be serious!" And there we were, back at square one like last night hadn't happened at all. My frustration over this pushed me right into a rage. "You just don't want to be happy. You think you don't deserve it or something. The highs and lows that come with happiness are unpredictable unlike chems, and _you_ can't handle it, so you'd rather just get loaded –"

He locked eyes with me, passion and sincerity smoldering in them. "I told you I was done arguing with you, Felina, and I meant it. This ain't just about me… Do you even know how I started doing chems in the first place? All the arguing and fighting between my parents, and they would…" He trailed off, his ebony eyes dissolving into an unfamiliar hurt.

I was taken aback.  "I thought you once told me you and your brother had a pretty good childhood?"

"Yeah, _pretty_ good.  The early years were best, but about the time I hit puberty, they came into some money and started chasing the status quo... Anyway, I made it out mostly unscathed."  His tone became thick with sarcasm  "Just some mild anxiety and self-esteem issues that I mask with excessive chem use and a lingering feeling that I'm never good enough.  Nothing major..." he paused for dramatic effect, becoming serious once more.  "But, I came out _mostly_ okay.  I realize now it could have been much worse.  We got to live in Diamond City and had access to almost anything we needed instead of struggling out in the wastes.  And so I say 'pretty good'."

I was still trying to absorb what he was saying when he looked like he was about to speak again, so I tried to slow him down by cutting him off.  "But..."  But I didn't actually have anything to say.

"But," he picked up where he left off, where I left him.  "I don't want ' _John Junior_ ', as you so aptly named our baby, to have to make that kind of discernment –"

"Rosalita," I corrected him distractedly, still processing this new information about his past that I wasn't aware of.

"Okay. John _or_ Rosalita –"

"No." I put a hand on my stomach. "Just Rosalita."

He raised a brow at me. "What are you talking about?"

Recalling the confirmed sex of the baby jogged my memory of the other events that had occurred the previous night. "Oh, my god, Ambrosia!" Amidst everything that had been going on between Hancock and me, her situation had slipped my mind.

"That girl you've been hanging out with all week? I'm sure she can wait a minute –"

"No, it's not that. She was arrested last night."

"Arrested? For what?"

I was already putting my jacket and boots on. "If you really want to know, come with me, and I'll tell you on the way, but I really don't have any time to waste."

* * *

Downstairs in the lobby, I asked Flo where the police station was, and we took off out the door. Outside, light flurries were falling all around us. As we walked through the shallow layer of snow that had peppered the streets, I explained to Hancock how she was a Child of Atom, saving the parts of her psychic predictions about the baby for some other time, since I knew he wouldn't be easily convinced.

He was not on board with my cause. "If she was going to irradiate the springs, effectively killing everyone here that didn't turn ghoul, then fuck her. She deserves to be in jail."

"You don't know that she was going to do that. That's just what they are accusing her of. I know the Children of Atom are nut jobs, but being religious is not a crime."

"It ain't a religion. It's a cult. And what if she did plan on doing that, and she just hadn't yet?"

"That's why she deserves a fair trial. Because she didn't, you don't know what her intentions were."

"Why do you care one way or the other? I know you and her got kinda chummy this week, but she's a Child of Atom, Felina. Nonbelievers ain't exactly high on their list of allies."

"Because. The elders are most likely going to execute her, and if she's innocent, that's a bit fucked up, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he admitted uneasily.

Inside the jail, there were a couple guards who informed me there would be no trial. It didn't really come as much of a surprise to find out Sleepy Water didn't have that kind of justice system given their reliance on a dog legend to keep them safe. She was to be executed at the New Year ceremony in a few hours. I pleaded with them, but they were adamant that there was nothing they could do. "We found written correspondence between her and the Children of Atom's Bomb City base. It stated very clearly what she was to do here. She was to locate the best source to quickly spread radiation throughout the springs and send the information she gathered back to Bomb City. At her word, they would send a damaged atomic nuke here from an old factory for her to take to the source and leave it there."

"Yeah, but you don't know that she was going to go through with it!" I exclaimed.

"That doesn't really matter at this point, ma'am. It's not up to us, anyhow. If it would make you feel better, we'll let you speak with her."

Hancock and I started to follow the guard back to the interrogation room, but the other guard put a hand on Hancock's chest. "Just the ina. You have to stay here."

He shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. "Alright," he relented with no argument. "Be careful," he bid me as I disappeared down the hall.

Once at the room, the guard began to come in behind me. I stopped him. "I'm her lawyer, remember? There's a certain level of confidentiality implied by that."

He looked at me skeptically, but eventually allowed me in alone. Ambrosia was seated with perfect posture at the far end of a table in the dim room. Once the door was shut behind me, I began to examine the perimeter before ever saying a word to her. I found a surveillance camera on the wall and hung my blazer over the lens, covering it before seating myself across from Ambrosia at the table.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I really didn't know what to say. I finally just jumped right into it. "Were you going to go through with it?"

Her face and voice were impassive as she replied, "Do you really even want to know?"

I thought about it before answering, "No."

Ambrosia gave me a small smile.

"Did you at least try telling them you weren't going to?"

"No."

"But they're going to execute you, Ambrosia."

"I know."

I was completely baffled by her lack of emotion. "You don't seem the least bit upset by that."

"Would it help?" she asked earnestly.

 _I suppose not._ "Well… what should we do?"

"We?" She smirked. "I'm really surprised at you, Felina."

"What? Why?"

"Well, first of all, if you understood anything about Atom, you would understand what it is to relent to his will. It's obvious to me that you don't hold any faith in the Children of Atom's beliefs, so I really don't understand why you are attempting to stick up for me anyhow."

"Because we're friends… Aren't we?"

She flashed me the same half-hearted smile as before. "That doesn't mean a whole lot in this world."

"It does to me. All the stuff we did together and talked about this last week… that wasn't an act, was it? I mean, I can't imagine how pretending to be friends with me could have been some angle you were playing."

"It wasn't, Felina. I enjoyed your company. Our friendship is not something that could have sustained given the circumstances of our backgrounds or the current situation, though. This or otherwise."

"Why? Because you're a Child of Atom?"

"Yes, whose teachings you don't subscribe to. And they wouldn't be very accepting of your husband either."

"That stuff doesn't matter as much as you think." I stood up from the table and walked over to her, giving her a hug. "This isn't goodbye," I told her. I grabbed my coat off the camera lens and slipped it back on. "I haven't given up yet, Ambrosia. I'm going to do something. I just don't know what."

"That's kind of you, but not really necessary. Atom will –"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Try to chill on all the freaky cult talk for now, huh? It's really not helping your case with the townspeople."

* * *

Hancock and I left the jailhouse and started heading toward the town square where the New Year ceremony was supposed to take place.

"Well," he asked me once we were outside. "Was she going to do it?"

"It doesn't matter," I replied, walking with determination.

"Yeah, it kinda does. So did she tell you or not?"

"No."

He shook his head while breathing a quiet, condescending laugh. "That right there says it all. She's guilty."

"No, technically that is not an admission of guilt. That's not how the law works."

"Law? What law? This ain't the twenty-first century, sweetheart. 'Law' is kind of a loose term, and the only justice that exists is the kind you make. You should know that by now."

"You're right." I stopped dead in my tracks, the snow collecting on the toes of my boots. Hancock stopped with me, and I noticed the flakes of it gathering in a fuzzy layer on his coat as I turned to him. "So maybe she was going to poison this whole town. I'm starting to wonder if that would be so terrible." I resumed walking again.

"You don't mean that." Hancock lagged behind, still a little stunned by my words. "You've gotta be kidding, right?"

"Well, as long as we are playing judge, jury, and execution, what evidence do we have that the people of this community are any good? You haven't forgotten how they stole our dog, have you?"

"No, but we're getting him back."

"Maybe," I said as I walked through the archway to the square. "We're about to see."

I searched the crowd for Shaun and Winona, but I didn't see them anywhere as I pushed my way to the front near the central platform with Hancock at my heels. We waited among the people for the ceremony to start, and all the while, I tried to think of something I could do to save Ambrosia. The snow began to fall harder as we waited, and the crowd started to thicken, pushing us all closer together and further forward. Hancock, concerned about me getting squashed into the fence, positioned himself behind me with a protective arm around my middle and one boot braced on the nearest post. I smiled, happy to draw from his warmth in the snow and even happier to be held by him.

Eventually, some men began to beat on some drums with their hands as four men in robes came down a walkway in a procession up to the platform. Not far behind was Ambrosia in cuffs, sandwiched between guards. Word of her intentions had clearly traveled through town fast as evident by the chorus of boos that swelled up among the mob. The guards escorted her onto the stage and forced her to her knees.

This was happening much more quickly than I had anticipated, and my mind raced for a solution, but none were coming to me.

A robed man in the middle held up his hands until the crowd quieted down. Once it was relatively hushed, he began to speak. "At the wake of this new year, I want to remind us that when a man moves from nature, his heart becomes hard."

The crowd briefly cheered at this.

"The Children of Atom are a living example – worshipping poison, destruction, and the bombs of man with hard hearts that would see us all dead and call it their 'God's will'."

Ambrosia rose her head and called out, "Whatever Atom is doing with millions of galaxies thousands of years from now, I'd like to be a part of! I beg of you Atom to use me as your vessel, guide me to your brilliance, divide each particle and give relief to this rotten flesh!"

An uproar of shouting at her grew among the spectators until the speaker quelled them once more. One of the guards rose a machete over her head as the elder shouted over the crowd, "Today, we will send a message to their missionaries that have congregated outside our town…"

The beating from the drums intensified.

Just then, Shaun and Winona came rushing up the walkway, one on each end of a rolled up rug and oblivious to the current affairs. Winona called out to the speaker as they reached the foot of the platform, "Shappah!" They ran up the platform's stairs, stopping next to the elder.

He lowered his arms and looked down at the girl. "This is not the time, Winona."

"We have something for you!" Each holding one corner of the rug, they flung it outward, unrolling it for all to see. The crowd became riled again.

"Winona!" he roared. "Do you wish for our end as well?!"

"Behold!" Ambrosia yelled with an empty smile. "He is coming with the clouds! And every eye shall be blind with his glory! Every ear shall be stricken deaf to hear the thunder of his voice!"

Winona ignored her. "That's what I'm trying to show you. Here is the rug and yet, we are all still standing!" She released her corner and Shaun let go of his end as well, dropping the rug to the stage as a wave of gasps washed over the spectators. "Proof that we don't need protection from the end of the world. Certainly not from a _dog_."

Shappah just stared in quiet, stern contemplation as the people got more worked up, and the other elders behind him whispered among themselves. One of them approached Shappah, and they began to speak to each other quietly.

Winona looked at Shappah fiercely. "Everything you've ever feared has and is already happening, and you are fine, see? Now do you believe me?"

Ambrosia continued her crazy ranting. "Do your people fear His Glow?!" She began to laugh. "The Division has already occurred, and yet you all hold up in this feeble town in fear of His inevitable return!"

He flung a hand in her direction. "Silence!" After calming the crowd once more, he began to speak. "What Winona has brought to my attention today is solid proof of her ongoing suspicions, as evidenced by the existence of the pine needle rug, and the world really has ended on the outside…"

Ambrosia interjected, "T'was not the end but the birth of trillions of universes!"

"…And in light of this, we no longer need to fear the old woman's weaving."

Winona and Shaun visibly relaxed at the sound of those words.

 _Wow. That was easy._ Of course, I wasn't the one bent over the weaving of this rug all week…

"The dog is to be even more revered and respected for protecting us from the alleged horrors that plagued the outside."

Winona beamed. "Aaand… we no longer need to keep dogs locked in the cave?"

Shaun leaned forward in anticipation.

"Winona, we need the dog's protection more than ever."

"What?!"

Shappah motioned toward Ambrosia. "He has protected us once, and he shall protect us again from the destructive heathens that wish to see us burn in radiation."

"What a shit-show!" Hancock leaned by my ear and whispered, "I ain't sure which faction involved here is crazier."

If there was a time to take action, this was it. "Lift me up," I said to him.

"What?"

"Lift me up over the fence."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

He helped me over the waist-high fence and I approached the platform. Guards started toward me, but I put one hand on my belly and another in front of me defensively. "Do _not_ touch me!" I called out. They backed off, and I approached the platform, addressing Shappah. "Wait!"

"What is the meaning of this, Ina?"

"If the Children of Atom leave the area, will you release the dog?"

"The Children of Atom are not the only threat in existence. They are just the most immediate threat at the moment."

I looked down at my belly that I was still holding and then back up at the elder. "True, but how long were you without a dog? Did they not show up when there was one already in your cave? And when this rug came into existence? I understand wanting a sort of safeguard in the event of a threat, but the concept is not foolproof. What you need is an active solution, or else even with a dog, you will always be in danger of the Children of Atom."

Murmurs began to surge from the people behind me.

Shappah held his hand out to them. "What do you propose we do, then, Ina? I'm willing to hear you out if you have something worthwhile to say."

"Let me have my dog back, and I will negotiate peace with them on your behalf."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I will need to speak with them directly to discover what alternatives will make them happy, and I can work it out from there. Negotiations are something I have had some experience with." They didn't need to know that my experience was failure.

The elders huddled in a group, discussing my proposition among themselves. After several minutes, they broke up and Shappah answered me. "Alright, Ina. If you can convince the Children of Atom to leave us in peace, you may have the dog."

"No, I want my dog first."

"I'm afraid we can't allow that, stranger. We need it as not only guarantee of our safety, but guarantee of your motives and return."

I pushed my fury down into the pit of my stomach and felt Rosalita kick at me in response. "The girl." I replied. "I will need Ambrosia with me as a show of faith that you truly intend the Children no harm."

He turned to the other leaders for a moment, and after short deliberation, addressed me again. "You may have the girl if she remains physically restrained in your company until you return her to Bomb City. We do not trust her, and neither should you. Make sure she stays there."

I smirked and shot Ambrosia a quick glance. "Deal."


	30. His Mind Is Like an Orchard

They wouldn't let us bring Ambrosia back to our room. Instead, they kept her in a holding cell at the jailhouse until we were ready to leave. Hancock, Shaun, Winona, and I rushed back to the room to quickly make plans. Coming through the door, I went straight for the atlas and spread it open on the coffee table. "Winona! Where is Bomb City?"

She came over to the table and found the city in no time. She pointed to a spot in the panhandle of Texas. "Right there."

"Amarillo?! ¡Hijo de puta! That's over 500 miles!" My eyes darted back and forth over the page, trying to take it all in while Hancock and Shaun were rapidly packing.

Winona gave me a polite, encouraging smile. "Depending on how fast you move and how long you travel each day, you can get there in two weeks."

I was trying to do the math in my head, but couldn't keep up without inadvertently saying it out loud as I went along. "That's anywhere from… eleven to thirteen hours of travel time a day without stopping… at three… three and a half miles an hour… Fuck…" I looked down at my belly.

Hancock was rushing from room to room, shoving my things into my bags for me. "I ain't gonna let you push yourself that hard," he called to me as he flit about the quarters. "Better count it as three weeks to be conservative."

I flipped to the calendar on the pip-boy and started counting weeks. "There and back… It will be February before we can get Dogmeat and get back on the road… One, two, three, four… It will be the beginning of April when we get to Vegas… That's _really_ cutting it close…"

Hancock set my bags down beside me. "So then, let's get going."

I looked back up at Winona. "Are you coming with us?"

"No. I'd like to, but I need to stay here and make sure Dogmeat is being properly taken care of until you get back. They have a history of neglecting the dogs, of course. I need to work on Shappah, too. I'm concerned that even if you succeed with your plan that they will still try to keep other dogs in that vault."

Hancock called to her from my bedroom. "Maybe you can convince him to lock up all the rug-knitting grannies, instead."

I smirked as I shut the atlas. "Makes just as much sense."

Shaun gave her a hug. "Make sure Dogmeat knows I'm coming back for him."

Winona's grin widened. "Of course I will."

I stood up and shouldered my belongings. "Everyone ready?"

"Yes," both the boys said in unison.

"Alright. Let's go get Ambrosia and head out." Just before I left our room behind for good, I grabbed the book I had been working on and shoved it in my bag.

We officially checked out at the front desk and returned the key to Flo. Hancock split from us outside the bathhouse to stock up on supplies at the general store, and Shaun and I proceeded to the police station.

At the jail, they gave me the key to Ambrosia's cuffs on a bright yellow lanyard to wear around my neck. It felt strange to lead my friend down the streets of town in handcuffs. Outside the general store, we didn't have to wait long for Hancock to conclude his business. It wasn't quite noon when we were finally on our way.

Once outside the fence-like mountains that surrounded Sleepy Water, the snow had quit falling, but everything was cloaked in a blanket of white. The Children of Atom's missionary camps could be seen on the horizon as little dark dots in the snow with smoke rising up from their fires. I started getting anxious. I never intended to keep Ambrosia in her cuffs the whole way, but I really wanted to get further away from Sleepy Water before I released her in case anyone was still watching us. However, I also didn't want to walk past the missionary posts with her in cuffs. It just seemed like it would cause unnecessary problems. I communicated my concerns to Hancock, and we ended up taking a wide path around them, adding extra time to our journey.

Once the lines of smoke up to the sky from the missionary posts were no longer visible behind us, I handed the key off to Hancock.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why are you giving this to me?"

I was fidgeting and walking away as I answered him, my feet stomping into the snow. "Let Ambrosia out of her handcuffs. I have to pee."

When I returned, Ambrosia was no longer shackled. She gave me a smile.

I smirked back. "Vamonos."

When we had first left the Commonwealth, I knew there were going to be delays, and I knew how hard it was going to get on me, but I still always felt like, in the back of my mind, that there would be plenty of time. And now, I had wasted enough of it along the way that that was no longer the case. In my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined the time-sucking situation that we were facing to get Dogmeat back, but there was no way I was going to leave him behind now, and I knew everyone agreed. No one would dare suggest it out loud. He was part of the family. Looking back on it as we traveled to Bomb City, I thought it was a little funny, since I never even planned on bringing him with us in the first place. Maybe not laugh-out-loud funny, but, well, you know.

I pushed myself harder than normal, trying to make as much time as possible out of our half day we had left. No one noticed, because in the end, pushing myself still put me at the normal pace I had kept up until then. I was slowing down. I could really feel the strain on my body now, and it was the best I could do. The constant pee urgencies had returned like the beginning of my pregnancy, but I held it in as much as possible. My feet and back hurt. It was all the same familiar aches from my first pregnancy, but I kept pushing through. It was only going to get harder by the day, and I had to gain distance while I could.

The sun was starting to get low, and Hancock started talking about settling in for the night.

"No! We can go a bit further."

"Felina, we're all ready to call it a night. It's only the first day. Let's just break and get started early tomorrow when we have more sunlight, huh?"

"I'm fine! If I can keep going, there's no reason you guys shouldn't be able to keep up."

Despite his best efforts, Hancock could not talk me out of my pacing, but I wasn't ready to give in just yet. I wasn't about to let the aches and pains get to me this early on. They kept increasing, and I was feeling short of breath, but I knew I could squeeze another mile out of me.

I started to feel light-headed…

Just a little further…

…

I heard Shaun's violin music before I ever opened my eyes. It was night. There was a crackling fire to my left and Hancock to my right, looking over me.

"That a girl," he said with a smile. "Do you enjoy making me worry or what?"

"No…" I slowly sat up.

"Easy there." He put a hand behind my back and guided me up.

"What happened?" I asked, a little woozy.

Ambrosia was seated a few feet away, cozied up to the fire as well. "Low blood pressure," she said matter-of-factly. "You fainted."

"Why would my blood pressure be low?"

"It just is during this part of the pregnancy, but you probably didn't notice with Shaun because you were probably taking it easy instead of rushing across the wilderness."

"How do you know that?"

"Me?" she said, gesturing to herself. "I was a midwife's apprentice for a short while when I was a young girl. If I hadn't left the Mojave, that would have been what I did with my life." She handed me a purified water. "Like I said, I love babies, but that just wasn't my calling. Atom needs me."

I guzzled half of it immediately. "How long was I out?"

"Not long." Hancock spread his arms out. "Just long enough for us to start a fire and settle down."

Ambrosia leaned over to my ear and whispered, "Shaun and I started the fire. Hancock never left your side."

I smiled weakly and finished up my water.

Hancock started digging through his bag. "I have something for you." He pulled out a pair of woolen leggings and an ushanka hat. "I got them at the general store before we left. I meant to give them to you earlier, but we were in such a hurry…" He handed them to me. "Here. You need them."

My brow raised in flattered wonder as I took them. "Thank you, Hancock. I'm going to put these on right away…" I crossed my legs hard as I placed the hat on my head. "As soon as I pee."

Hancock helped me up, and I was still a little shaky on my feet. He looked to Ambrosia. "Go with her."

"Hancock, no –" I tried to shake my head no, but I was too dizzy. My legs buckled a little, and Hancock caught me, holding me up by my arms.

"Felina, yes," he retorted facetiously.

Ambrosia approached, and he passed me off to her. "Come on, Ina," she said, leading me off to the trees.

"Ina? Oh, don't you start that, too."

"What? I thought that was your nickname."

I sighed. "It's not." At least she wasn't calling me Menew.

Once we made it to the brush, I insisted I didn't need further help.

Ambrosia leaned on the other side of the tree, gazing up at the stars while I took care of things. "Thank you, by the way… for saving me. You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, well." I was in the process of squeezing into the leggings. "You can't leave everything in God's hands."

"Easy for you to say when you're agnostic."

"Hey, I never said I was agnostic. I'm just not a follower of Atom." I grunted as I pulled the leggings over my belly. They were a little tight, but I could tell by the feel of the fabric that they would stretch to the right shape in no time. I started sliding back into my boots. "I used to attend Catholic church when I was a girl." I came around to her side of the tree.

"Oh," she said with a playful smirk. "A Jesus freak. I've heard of you."

"More like 'spiritual'. Hell, I haven't been to church in literally hundreds of years. ."

"I think you mean 'figuratively'."

"I know what I said. Anyway, I don't know what they teach you in that cult of yours, but I learned in mass that God will provide, but you still have to attempt to take care of things yourself. No one is entitled to a bunch of free divine favors."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Our religion tells us differently, though. It also says that wordly endeavors and encounters with nonbelievers are merely distractions from Atom."

"And you believe that?"

"Maybe not as much as they'd like me to. But so far, things have been working out for me."

I smiled as I leaned on the tree trunk. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." She started to walk past me, leaving me there. "Wait, I thought we were having a good talk. Where are you going?" I asked before turning around.

"Back to the camp."

Once I turned to face that direction, I saw Hancock a few steps away. _Oh._ I let myself fall back on the trunk.

He stopped in front of me. "Hey, Felina," he said with a grin.

I returned the smile. "Hey, Hancock."

He looked down at my leggings. "Do they fit alright?"

"Yeah."

"Warm?"

I smiled wider. "Very."

"Good." He placed his palm beside me on the trunk, bracing on it directly over me. "Listen, I just wanted to let you know, even though I ain't a huge fan of the Children of Atom, I think your approach towards all of this is a little…ambitious."

"It's the right thing to do."

"I know! I wanted you to know it ain't gone unnoticed. I know I said I second guess your judgement sometimes, but I keep forgetting how much better you are at looking at the big picture than I am."

"Everything happened so fast today…" I started, unsure how to get to where I was going. "While I got you alone, can we talk about what you mentioned this morning? About your childhood?"

He slumped a little. "I never mentioned it before because those ain't memories I really want to revisit. Unlike some of the other low moments from my life, I feel like that stuff was beyond my control. I don't think there's a lesson to be learned in any of that."

"Maybe there is though…"

"I'll say this. My parents didn't get along. They only got more…unhappy…as the years went on, and shit has the tendency to roll downhill. I'll leave it at that."

"That's fine. I don't really need you to expand on that to make the point I'm getting at. It's just… I didn't realize until today that our childhoods are something we never talked about with each other, and now we're having a baby together. That kind of information seems kind of pertinent in that regard, whether we're together or not. You don't know this about me, but I was raised by just my mom, and my childhood was actually…just peachy. We never had a lot of money, but we were happy. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I wanted to know my dad, or just have one at all."

"You're right. I didn't know that," he said in an airy tone. "But you just said so yourself that even without one, you still had a happy childhood."

"Right. It's not what I would consider an ideal situation, but I've seen it done right, and I could do it, too. Which is why I told you that I could raise a baby on my own if you really wanted to run."

"Fuck, Felina, I wasn't trying to run…"

"And I'm glad you didn't." I said with a smile. "You know what the difference is between your parents and us?"

"What's that?"

"We're actually considering how this will affect our children. Which is how I know that we _will_ work out. I'm convinced this is just a rough patch and a lesson for us where we come out on the other side even stronger than before. This is our chance to give our baby all the love and stability that we wish that we had when we were growing up. We can't right the wrongs in our pasts, but we can make damn sure they don't happen to our baby."

He sighed, but his eyes wavered. "That all sounds really nice, but it ain't as easy as you make it sound."

"I never said it was going to be! When has it ever been easy to get the things you want out of life? But I really can't imagine my life without you, and I don't want to. I love you, and you already admitted you love me. There aren't any problems we can't handle together if we keep that in mind."

"Yeah, about that…" He shifted his weight between his feet anxiously, looking down at his boots. "When you told me to go back to Goodneighbor the other day, it made me realize what a shitty position I had put you in. And I'm a little disappointed in myself by how fucked up I got last night, but I don't regret it. I said some things to you I don't think I would have said to you otherwise, and your response to that was…better than I would have guessed. You put some of my concerns to bed."

When he looked back up, I was surprised to see him smiling. He now had both his hands on the tree, one on either side of me, leaning closer than before. "I seem to have forgotten how hard this whole journey must be on you. I convinced myself I'm some kinda white knight for trying to call it quits before the baby is born to spare it from our arguing, but that ain't what it is. It's just a fucking cop out because raising a child from birth is going to be fucking hard... and scary. And for you, the hard work already started. I lost sight of that when my feelings got hurt. I'm over here falling apart without you, but you managed to hold it together enough to set plans in motion to save a town full of people, your new friend, and our family. I'm pretty impressed."

"Thanks."

"And all without my support. That ain't what a good husband should do. When I saw that guy kiss you, my gut reaction _was_ to run. I didn't, but all the extra chems I've been doing instead ain't a reasonable reaction either. It doesn't matter who said or did what first or why. It occurred to me when I sobered up some today – for the first time in weeks – that maybe all my fears about how I don't deserve you are true… "

"John, no…"

"Let me finish. I don't deserve you if I'm going to allow myself to get discouraged by the tough shit and give up. The fighting and jealousy sucks, but the rest of the time, you make me happier than I've ever been. And I don't want to let that go." He put his forehead against mine, and his hat tilted upwards. "I want to be your loving husband again. Your loving, supportive, understanding husband that doesn't drive you into someone else's arms in the first place."

"But you didn't – "

"It's fine, love. It's over and in the past. I know it won't happen again."

"No…" I straightened his tricorn hat for him. "It won't."

"We're both pretty far from perfect, but I think we balance each other out pretty good." He lifted my chin with a finger. "I think we're gonna be alright, love."

"Better than ever, querido." I replied in almost a whisper.

He took me in his arms and started leading me into a slow dance to the violin music Shaun was playing. I put my head on his shoulder, and he slowly led our waltzing back to camp.

We had made a lot of progress that day. I could tell him about Rosalita's gift some other time.


	31. Twilight Galaxy

"You'd believe it if Mama Murphy had said it, but not Ambrosia."

Hancock rolled his eyes. "First of all, Mama Murphy didn't belong to some psychotic cult. And second, I didn't rely on any of her babble in any real way..."

I knew this was going to be a problem. That's why I wasn't in any hurry to tell him about Rosalita's situation.

"…I admit, it would be nice if it were true, but I find it kinda hard to believe that we'd be that…lucky."

"Lucky?" I hadn't really thought about it that way.

"Yeah. Never having to worry about protecting our child from radiation… on top of being able to ignore all Dr. Amari's advice about practicing abstinence. If there was some kind of proof that the baby was resistant to radiation –"

"Healed by it, actually."

"Whatever. If you had something to back up your claim besides the word of a devout lunatic that worships the stuff, maybe I would be more accepting of the idea. I'm sure if it were true, Dr. Amari would have told us."

"How could she have known? The baby was probably the size of a bean at the time. Plus, she's a brain doctor, not an obstetrician. There may not even be a way to check for that sort of thing. I can't imagine it's a common enough situation for that."

"It ain't common! That's what I'm saying. There ain't any reason to think it can happen at all, so I'm going to need some more compelling evidence of it before I deliberately transmit radiation to you."

"Shit, John, that's not where I was going with this, anyway!"

"Then what were you getting at?"

"Just that I believe her. You don't understand what I've experienced with this baby inside of me. The way she has reacted to… environmental stimuli…and then there's no way Ambrosia could have known about any of those situations, but she specifically recalled them after touching my stomach… It's all pretty compelling in my opinion."

"You go ahead and believe whatever you like, love, but I ain't coming anywhere near your womb again as long as that baby is in there. Hell, I ain't even going to believe that the baby is for sure a girl until I see for myself."

"…Are we arguing, right now?"

"No. This is merely a 'debate'."

"Good."

Just then, Shaun called to us from camp. "Burnin' daylight, guys!"

I turned to Hancock once more. "We can continue this later."

He started walking back to camp. "There ain't nothing to continue here, love. Just let it go."

I threw my hands up in defeat. "Fine."

We pushed on toward Bomb City. The January nights were cold, but I got to spend them back in Hancock's arms once more, so it didn't really bother me. Every night, we'd snuggle up to the fire in our blankets while Shaun played the Soil Stradivarius. My large belly was making it difficult for me to get comfortable when I played my guitar, so I hadn't been practicing as much. Instead, Hancock would hold me while I read from _Lying, Congressional Style_ until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

The closer we got to our destination, the warmer it got. I could still tell I was slowing down, but I no longer felt like I had no one to rely on now that Hancock and I had worked things out, and I was filled with new strength. We started seeing less trees and long stretches of wilderness, and more settlements. After a couple weeks, I no longer needed the hat and leggings. A few days after that, we were almost there.

We were about thirty miles outside of Amarillo in a pretty populated settlement when Shaun found a radio station on his pip-boy. A country gospel song was playing:

 

" _Are you ready for that great atomic power_

_Will you rise and meet your Savior in the end_

_Will you shout or will you cry when the fire rains from on high_

_Are you ready for that great atomic power_ "

 

Initially, I wasn't sure if the song was in favor of atomic power or not. It wasn't until the second verse mentioned Jesus that I concluded it was not the Children of Atom's own private radio station.

Ambrosia pointed west at a cluster of warehouses and bunkers in the distance. "Our base is over there at the old bomb factory."

Hancock scowled. "Of course."

I looked around us in wonder as we strolled through the bustling prairie town. I couldn't help but wonder how thrilled the rest of the people were about the Children of Atom basing themselves out of a nuclear weapons facility. Judging by the song on the radio, I'd guess not very. "I shouldn't be surprised, since this isn't the first time I heard of a city being built around the remains of atomic bombs, but this place is so… big…"

Hancock was soaking up our surroundings as well. He subtly nodded at a couple guys in power armor on the corner of an intersection. "This is the first time I've seen any significant Brotherhood presence since we left the east coast."

Ambrosia shot him a glance. "Yeah, I'd stay on my toes if I were you, Hancock. There's a lot of Brotherhood out west, and some of them aren't very kind towards ghouls."

"Heh," he chuckled sarcastically. "You ain't gotta tell me, sister."

"Hey," I interjected. "We paid our dues. We have Maxson's endorsement. They aren't supposed to bother us."

"And how are they supposed to know who we are?"

"Well, how many families of a ghoul dressed as a pirate, a pregnant woman, and a synth child do you think are in existence?"

Ambrosia raised a brow at me. "What do you mean 'synth child'? As in synthetic human?"

Shaun huffed. "Thanks, _mom_!"

"Did I not mention that?" I asked with a nervous, half-smile. "Must have slipped my mind."

Ambrosia's face matched Hancock's scowl now. "I wouldn't go around advertising that if I were you."

"Enough said."

After a few more steps in silence, Ambrosia spoke up again, this time to Hancock. "Are you really supposed to be a pirate?" she asked with innocent curiosity.

I smirked, and Shaun stifled a giggle.

"You can think that if you want," Hancock said. "I've definitely been called worse."

We kept closing in on the base, and I started to get anxious. I had been thinking about how to convince the Children of Atom to leave Sleepy Water alone, and none of the stuff I had come up with felt real solid to me. I had been discussing a plan of action with Ambrosia over the past couple weeks, and she was pretty cocksure that we could do it, but I didn't share her level of confidence.

A large sign was up ahead of us with the U. S. seal and the words "Pantex Plant" on it. Trespassing warning signs started to come into view affixed to the barbed wire fence as we got closer, and my anxiety burgeoned. "Ambrosia?"

"Yes?"

"Will the other Children be able to sense the, uh, gift from Atom like you did?"

"No. Some may, but not many. My ability to sense that is my own gift from Atom."

"Great."

"Give it up, love," Hancock remarked in a quiet aside. "Her own people probably ain't even buying that story."

Once we were through the gates, Ambrosia started leading us toward a large building directly ahead. My pip-boy started making that low crackling sound associated with radiation, and I could feel Rosalita doing her little happy dance in my belly. I checked Hancock discreetly out of the corner of my eye. He hadn't noticed yet.

Then the Geiger counter on Shaun's pip-boy started making the sound. He began to slow down. "Mom…?"

I ignored him.

Then it hit Hancock. He came to an abrupt stop and, without a word, started pulling me back the way we came in. "Felina, I fucking swear…"

"What? You swear what?"

He stopped pulling me once we were outside of the range of radiation. Ambrosia was still standing in it up ahead of us with her arms spread and her eyes closed in euphoria like she was a ghoul basking in it. Hancock briefly glared at her before facing me. "I can't let you go in there."

"Why? Because of a little radiation?"

"A little radiation?! I don't know what I was thinking. It's a _nuclear bomb_ factory! We're barely near it and already feeling the rads. Baby or no, that place will probably kill you!"

"Nonsense. The Children of Atom believe that ghouls are being punished by Atom, so everyone in there is still human and alive."

"I don't fucking care! I ain't letting you endanger yourself and the baby like this!"

"Well, what do you suggest, John?"

Ambrosia had finished soaking up her chosen poison for the moment and approached us. "What's the issue?"

I motioned to Hancock. " _He_ won't let me go in. He says there are too many rads."

She shifted her weight in a fidgeting manner from foot to foot. "I thought we already established Rosalita is immune to that."

Hancock sliced the air in front of him with his arm. "I ain't buying that bullshit!"

Shaun had been hanging back but finally decided to jump in. "Dad and I can do it, mom. No one is more invested in saving Dogmeat than I am."

I put a hand to my pregnancy bump, gazing downward.

Hancock took my other hand in his. "It will be fine, love. It's better this way. Safer."

I felt tears welling up behind my eyes. _God, I can't wait for this baby to be born._ "Okay…okay…" I finally agreed quietly, successfully beating the waterworks.

Hancock breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, love." He gave my hand a small peck before releasing it.

Ambrosia looked at me, a little disappointment. "What, uh, what are you going to do while we're gone?"

I sat down on the ground. "Wait here, I guess."

Hancock kept smiling widely at me as he backed away. Ambrosia and Shaun were already ahead of him, side by side. Once Hancock finally faced forward, I watched him discreetly pull out his mentats and toss one in his mouth before jogging to catch up with them. I could just barely hear Ambrosia asking our son, "So how does Atom's Glow sit with the little synthetic one?"

His response faded out with their distance. "Eh, doesn't bother me."

I reclined, bracing myself on my hands and looking up at the sky. It was a brilliant, bright cobalt with hardly any wisps of clouds breaking up the blue. A light breeze was blowing, but it wasn't chilly. I enjoyed the peaceful scenery for a little while, but it didn't take long before I started getting simultaneously bored with nothing to do and anxious about the action I was missing out on. _I hope they can do it without me._ For the first time in a while, I started craving a cigarette.

I pulled out _Lying, Congressional Style_ , but after a couple pages of having to continuously reread whole paragraphs because I wasn't paying attention the first time, I clapped it closed and tossed it back in my bag. After some consideration, I broke out my guitar. It took me a while to find a comfortable position to hold it in, but I eventually settled with my back against a sign post and started strumming it. After working out a few chords, I started playing the prewar song that had now taken the place of _El Paso_ as the most important song I knew how to play:

 

" _Rosalita, my little rose of the rancho_

_You won my heart down by the Rio_

_Dry your eyes and don't be blue_

_Nanita, I'll come back to you, my Rosalita._

 

_Each night I tell the moon on high and all of its glory_

_Of you and I and days gone by and love's sweet story_

_Rosalita, another day is dawning_

_For you I'm longing, Rosalita_."

 

She kicked at me with gentle pleasantness in acknowledgement of her lullaby, and I found myself smiling. "Hang in there, Rosalita. Everything's going to work out."

After running through the song a few more times to make sure it was cemented in my mind, I started cycling through some of the other songs I knew to keep myself occupied. Eventually, I found myself repeating songs as the time dragged on. _What is taking so long?_ Finally, I could see the group approaching. I put my guitar back in its case and stood, waiting restlessly.

Once they were close enough for me to see their faces, I was able to read the defeat before they ever even told me. My heart sank.

Shaun came straight to me and wrapped his arms around me. I glanced up at Hancock pleadingly.

"They ain't budging, love."

Ambrosia looked at me sympathetically. "The council of bishops was so disappointed in my failure at Sleepy Water that they wouldn't even let me speak to Apostle Elrod to try to appeal to him. I'm sorry."

I could faintly here Shaun's stifled sniffles against my coat. "What are we going to do?" he asked pathetically.

Hancock put a hand on his back. "We'll figure something out, kiddo. I ain't ready to give up yet. We'll just have to go back to Sleepy Water and –"

"No!" I exclaimed. "No, fuck this!" I grabbed Shaun by the shoulders and thrust him into Hancock's arms, marching towards the building.

He grabbed me by the arm. "Felina, don't make this worse!"

I jerked out of his grip. "I'm going in there, Hancock! If you try to stop me, you're the one who's going to be making things worse."

He grabbed my arm again. "Is that supposed to be a threat?"

"What are you going to do? Drag me all the way back to Sleepy Water against my will?"

He started pulling. "If I have to!" He was holding me harder this time.

"Let go!" I yelled as I pulled against his grip.

"You ain't going in there!"

I kept fighting to get free and he put his arms around me from behind, lifting me up enough that my kicking feet were off the ground. Ambrosia and Shaun just stared in astonishment as we physically struggled with each other. I finally relaxed, and he lowered me back down, his arms still wrapped around me.

After a few moments of me being complacent, he asked, "If I let go of you, are you going to be more reasonable?"

I nodded, and he slowly released me. The moment I was completely free of his hold, I took off running at full speed to the building.

"For fuck's sake, Felina!" I could hear his footsteps hitting the ground a few feet behind me and Shaun and Ambrosia's quieter jogging further behind him. I pushed myself, running faster than I ever have. I heard the crackling of the Geiger counter getting keyed up.

_I have to save Dogmeat._

The crackling got more urgent.

_For Shaun._

The rad reading sounded like popcorn popping over AM radio.

_So we can finally get home…_

Rosalita felt like she was bouncing on a tiny trampoline in my guts, having the time of her life.

_…For Rosalita._

I rushed through the open rolling door of the factory, and Hancock, Shaun, and Ambrosia came to a stop behind me.

All the Children in the vicinity turned and stared at me. With both hands on my stomach, I cried out to anyone that would hear me, "I am carrying Atom's child!"


	32. It's Been a Long, Long Time

I couldn't feel the radiation. You just can't until you're already sick. That's the whole purpose behind the Geiger counter's sound. But I could feel the baby's happy acceptance of the healing glow. No one else could tell what was going on inside me, though. Even though the Children of Atom welcome the radiation and revere it as the same healing glow that it truly was for Rosalita, it was obvious by everyone's astonishment that they were aware that despite their reverence for it, they knew the reality of things. A normal fetus in utero can't tolerate rads the way an adult tenuously could. They're supposed to be experts on the subject, so I was counting on that.

"Woman, you are asking for sorrow," one man called out.

Hancock tried grabbing at me again. "You have to get the baby out of here!" he called frantically as I wriggled and evaded his grip.

Another follower shook her head. "You are assuredly too late for that," she told him somberly.

"Not when the child is Atom's prophet!" I exclaimed. "Come see for yourself!"

"How?"

"She lives! Come feel her kick."

The woman approached and carefully put her hand to my belly. Her eyes lit up, and she turned to everyone else that had been watching this whole event unfold. "She really is kicking! The radiation didn't kill her!"

The Children started to come near me, surrounding me and fumbling around each other to feel for themselves. I could almost see Hancock's internal panic attack at what was happening, but if he didn't buy Ambrosia's predictions by the time this was over with, I'd eat my hat.

One of the followers had the same dramatic reaction Ambrosia did when she first touched me. He froze with his eyes shut and started mumbling some of the same rants she did about the lighthouse and the radiation I had experienced recently. "She really _is_ Atom's prophet!" he proclaimed in conclusion.

"This woman?" a skeptical observer asked.

"No, Rosalita! The baby!"

I turned my head to Hancock with a self-satisfied smirk. His brow rose as he stared on, mouth agape.

We were ushered by the excited crowd to the room where the council was congregating. They looked displeased to see the other members of our group once again, but before they could protest, the followers started talking in a hysterical jumble.

One of the bishops called for silence. When everyone calmed down, he spoke out. "Someone – just _one_ person – please explain what is going on here."

Ambrosia pushed the other person that shared her psychic ability forward, volunteering him. He addressed the bishops, "This woman is carrying the unborn prophet of Atom."

"What woman?"

I pushed my way to the front so that my pregnancy was visible. "I wish to speak to Apostle Elrod," I told them calmly.

After some back and forth, they allowed Ambrosia and me into the next room. "Wait here, and if Apostle Elrod wishes to see you, he'll be in momentarily."

Ambrosia and I took our seats. I flashed her a grin. "Welp, here we are," I remarked cheerfully.

"Nicely done. Now what are you going to tell the Apostle?"

"Uh…"

I didn't have any time to think about it before he entered the room. "What words can I impart to you, newcomer?" he said with no fanfare.

 _Here we go._ "I am with child, and she has a gift…and a message for you from Atom."

He raised one brow in a smirk. "Is that so?"

I rested my palm on my stomach with a serious face. "Rosalita says He wants you to leave Sleepy Water in peace."

"Of course she would say that…" he said, directing his gaze at Ambrosia. "…As a 'friend' of our little disgrace, here, who has forgotten so much that Atom has taught her. Fraternizing with heathens and giving herself to the wordly pleasures that godless town has to offer."

"Whatever you think her ulterior motives are are irrelevant. Ambrosia is not allowed to return to Sleepy Water. She has nothing to gain from the town's existence. And neither do I, as my home is further west from here. I am only a vessel bringing you the message I was given."

"And that message is to leave Sleepy Water alone?"

"Yes. Atom has his own plans for that place, and does not need you to insinuate yourself into them."

"And what plans are those?"

"How should I know? I only know what I've been told, and I am not one to question or pester a God that choses to speak to me."

My success was apparent to me in the look behind his eyes that he tried to hide. _Cha-ching!_

He approached me and placed his own palms on my belly. After several long moments of silence, he took a few steps back. "I will send word to our missionaries there to withdraw immediately."

The baby gave me a soft nudge as I smiled and rubbed my belly. "Rosalita is pleased, as I am sure Atom is."

"Please, take your leave now," he said with a harsh look.

Ambrosia and I started to the door, but he spoke once more before we exited. "I look forward to speaking with this prophet once she is old enough to deliberate."

My brow furrowed, and I opened my mouth to retort, but Ambrosia pulled me from the room before I had the chance to ruin all my gain.

* * *

I was in a daze as we made our way through the warehouse back to Hancock and Shaun.

Shaun was on the edge of his seat. "So what happened?"

Ambrosia grinned wildly. "The missionaries are leaving Sleepy Water for good."

He pumped his fist and hissed a fervent, "Yes!"

Hancock rushed to my side. "So let's get you out of here, huh?"

I nodded weakly as he led me outside. My world started to tilt as I walked unsteadily, held upright by Hancock's hands.

"Hey, are you alright, love?"

As I nodded again, everything within my field of vision went… horizontal…

…

When I came to, I straight away recognized the sights around me as that of a medical facility. I could hear Hancock speaking to an unfamiliar voice. After feeling the frantic kicking in my stomach, the first feebly spoken word out of my mouth was, "John?"

In an instant, he was standing over me. "Felina…" He grabbed my hand.

Directly next to him, I could see the bag of radaway hanging from the IV drip that was connected to my arm. "Remove that," I demanded with all the energy I could muster.

Hancock knew what I was asking and shook his head. "No way. I almost lost you to radiation poisoning…again."

"But Rosalita –"

"Rosalita is fine, love."

A man in a lab coat came up beside him. "We're just lucky that your baby withstood all the rads you soaked up. That was seemingly impossible, and if I was a religious man, I'd call it a miracle. Now, I understand your concerns. Hancock told me about the decrease in placental perfusion that your doctor warned you about. The risk of that is higher in your early months and with frequent use of radaway. Many doctors debate that diuretics don't significantly effect –"

"No, it hurts Rosalita." I was pulling at the needle in my arm.

The doctor frowned. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, miss. You need the radaway, and the baby will be just –"

"Rosalita is different! Remember, John? Remember how you said radaway burns?"

"That's ghouls, love. Rosalita isn't a ghoul."

Regardless, she was kicking up a storm. "Please…" I said weakly, rolling my head back onto the pillow.

"Even so," Hancock assured me, "It doesn't harm ghouls. It just stings a little. She'll be alright, love."

Urgent beeping from a monitor further away started to fill the air. "Tell her everything's fine," the doctor said to Hancock as he rushed away to the other patient's aid. Hancock followed, closing the medical curtain behind him before returning to my side.

"Where's Shaun?" I asked.

"He's with Ambrosia."

"So… now do you believe me?"

"About the baby's 'gift'?" He smiled warmly. "How can I not?"

"I feel fine, querido," I said to him in my sweetest voice. "You can take this IV out now."

He looked up at the monitor where you could see my rad reading slowly dropping. "Just a little bit longer, love."

I observed the number for myself. It was at 113. "That's low enough. 113 is just a minor inconvenience for me."

"Nah, I need it to be lower."

"Why do _you_ need it to be lower?"

"For this." He leaned over me and started kissing me deeply. While his lips covered mine, my surprised eyes were briefly drawn to the monitor where I saw the number stabilize at 113. It rose to 114 as I started kissing him back. When the number went up to 115, Rosalita began to calm down, and I closed my eyes, throwing myself completely into the passionate moment.

Goosebumps traveled up my arms in succession with Hancock's palms as he caressed me. I swept over his tongue with mine, and I could feel the vibrations of him moaning in response. The monitor's slow, steady beat began to increase with my stimulated heart rate. The climbing rad numbers and the rising tempo of the heart monitor were a tangible measurement of how turned on I was right then. This fact only turned me on more.

I pulled out of our kiss. "How much time do you think we have until the doctor returns?" I asked in a desperate, breathy voice.

He buried his head in the crook of my neck with his mouth beside my ear. "Not enough for what I want to do to you," he purred.

At this, I swooned. He leaned in to kiss me once more, but I gently blocked him with my palm. "No más," I commanded him. "Let it get to zero, so I can get out of here."

He smiled slyly as he backed off. "I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer."

* * *

It was sunset when we left the Bomb City clinic and made our way to the local hotel like a couple of eager newlyweds that had just eloped on a whim, always in some kind of constant contact with each other. All the way there, we were amused by every touch – a bump into each other, a graze of the hand, a handful of each other's clothing, the occasional break from our already distracted travel to sneak in a kiss. My heart was light. I felt free for the first time in a long time.

We somehow managed to divert our attention from each other long enough to acquire a room, to which we hastily retreated.

With the door slammed shut behind us, we immediately dropped our bags to the floor. He began tugging at the horrid pink dress I was wearing, and I wiggled out of it as quickly as I could. He moaned and growled while he wrangled the dress over my head, and once my hands were free, I gripped and grabbed at him with urgent possessiveness as though he could be taken from me if I wasn't vigilant. His hands wandered over me as if he were facing the same problem, our faces locked at the mouth. With him in front of me, I started guiding him to the metal-framed daybed backwards across the room, and he automatically fell to the mattress behind him. With no complaints, he pulled me down on him.

A shiver shot up my spine when I felt the molten stiffness in his pants pressing at my folds. I struggled to steady myself, but I wasn't on top long. He rolled over, putting me on my back beside him with my legs hanging off the side of the mattress.

I wasn't about to be the only naked one. "Take you clothes off, querido."

"In a minute." He plunged to my lips, kissing me with fervor and passion as he squeezed my breasts. I could feel the warmth spreading through me as his mouth left mine to explore other sensitive areas. I just closed my eyes and relented to his touch.

He went to work at my shoulders and neck, and I writhed in pleasure at his little breaths that wisped across my skin through the hole in face and when he lifted his mouth from one place to the next. While this was going on, he grabbed my wrists and brought them over my head, holding them both with one hand.

Lost in the moment, I didn't realize until too late what he was doing…

_Click, click._

My eyes popped open. I tried to pull my arms down, but I was handcuffed to the long side of the frame. "No, you didn't…"

"Yes, I did, love," he said looking down on me with an impish smile.

"Where did you…?" I didn't even have to finish the question before I figured it out.

His smile twisted further as he twirled the bright yellow lanyard in his hand. " _You_ gave me the key. Hang onto to these for me, will ya?" he said as put the lanyard over my head and placed his hat on me. He started making a trail of light kisses down my chest and stomach.

"Oh, shit," I whispered in an anxious breath as his face got lower.

He slid down to the floor, on his knees between my thighs.

He barely had my boots off when he suddenly dove at me, licking, sucking, tonguing with such enthusiasm, you'd think he had something to prove, and with such prowess, I'd say he proved it. As soon as he made a connection with me, I was gone, throwing my head back and succumbing to whatever he had in store. The hat slid sideways, barely clinging to the tangled strands of hair that curtained my face as he pulled my legs over his shoulders.

Every slick slice at my clit radiated pleasure through me. Every graze of his muscle against my sensitive flesh sent me spasming uncontrollably. It had been so long. Too long… He would rhythmically detour from my clit every now and then to sweep just inside me briefly, and every time, I would lose it, letting loose an unbridled cry that had to be disturbing the neighbors. But I didn't care.

He really threw himself into it. He was so avid, you'd think he was enjoying it more than me, though I would be hard pressed to find a convincing argument that proved that.

"Oh, my God!" His tongue traveled down and in again, then back up to the vertex of aroused nerves that were on the verge of submission. Each perfectly conducted graze inspired its own feeling of bliss, driving me over a dangerous, deadly cliff. There was no coming back. There was no surviving. This was the end of me. I was okay with that.

I was just grateful to be on the receiving end. If I could return the favor, I would, but even if I wasn't cuffed to the bed, there was no way I would allow him to stop his magnificent performance until… until…

"Oh, fuck!" The trembling started small down in my toes, shaking all the way up my legs until it hit the mainland, stopping me from having any further control over what followed. I twisted into the mattress, losing the hat and jingling the metal of the cuffs against the bed frame. "Oh, John!" I could never be more pleased than that moment. The rest of my life is ruined, thanks to the high bar he had just set.

He hummed at my release with his head still in place, drinking up the moment along with everything else down there. Breathing hard, I crossed over the peak, preparing to come down, but he didn't stop...

I was suddenly aware of what the handcuffs were for. "John, no!"

He held my thrashing hips down and kept licking at me voraciously, long past the cutoff point, driving the animalistic noises I was making into a crescendo of half pleasure, half alarm as I frantically squirmed. His agile tongue kept flicking at the overstimulated fire between my legs, and my scrambled brain couldn't think of a way out of this. Just when I thought I couldn't take another moment of what was happening, he abruptly paused.

"You alright?" he asked from out of view on the other side of my massive belly.

"No," I whined.

"Is that your final answer?" he asked as he raised his head up and slowly ran a fingertip up my slick crevice.

Something happened in that short moment he had let up. The overstimulated throbbing slowed back down to a steady pulse, and as he pet at me, I found myself pleasantly surfing another wave that could easily break. "Actually…"

"Yes?" he asked eagerly, still teasing me with one finger.

"You can continue."

"Oh, I can?" he sang facetiously. "How 'bout ya beg?"

"Please, John," I said in that desperate, breathy voice I knew he loved so much. "Please, make me come again."

"Make you come _again_?" he asked playfully. "Why do ya think ya get to come more than once?"

"Because…" I was starting to pant. "You're so _good_ at it!"

His eyelids fluttered. "That's… a really good answer." His mischievous smile returned as he rubbed his hands on my inner thighs. "You want me to tongue fuck you, love?"

"Oh, yes," I said, pulling at my bonds till they clinked against the metal bars.

"How bad?"

"So, bad!"

" _Fuck_ , I love you…" His head bobbed back down and he plunged his tongue inside me until my panting ramped up. He was squeezing at the meat of my ass and gradually bringing the same wet finger from before closer to the action, running it around the rim of the backdoor. Initially, I squirmed in shock, but then he pressed the center gently. It didn't take much after that. My next climax stirred, radiating through my very bones as I cried out for more.

He was finally satisfied with this, rising up to his feet and watching me writhe in ecstasy against the wrinkled blanket as he removed his clothes with a smug grin. My unfocused eyes darted over my round horizon to watch him as he gradually revealed more of himself with every discarded item of clothing. The red frock coat fluttered to the floor, and he unstrapped his holster with his gun still in it, laying it down with some care. The vest came off, followed by his button-up shirt. My pulse sped up when he held his knife up in front of his face in momentary consideration while slipping out of his boots, but he let it fall to the floor with a definitive thump.

When he finally got to his pants, I longingly tried to catch a glimpse of the savage meat he was about to violate me with. My eyes widened at that fleeting moment that ended when he approached the space between my legs again.

He stroked my thighs on either side of him with both hands as he stood there. "Do you remember our honeymoon, love?"

"Of course," I replied breathlessly, still reeling from the double climax and my body humming in anticipation of his next touch.

"So that we're in agreeance, how many orgasms did you get to have that night?"

I held up four fingers on one of my cuffed hands over my head.

"Good. That's what I counted, too." He drew closer, teasing my valley with his ragingly stiff member. "Let's see if we can beat that." Still standing beside the bed, he pressed the tip at my entrance, and that little bit of impingement elicited a gasp from me. He slid his hands around my bottom, his fingers spread and holding tightly. "Try to keep up." He pushed the rest of the way in, the smoldering friction of him stabbing at my core causing a bigger gasp from me as my back drew up from the mattress.

He held that bottomed-out position, his own head tilting back with a low growl of pleasure. I could feel myself pulsating around him, completely filled. I grabbed onto the bars over my head. "Oh, John… That feels so good…"

"Fuck," he whispered in an exhale. He looked down on me with half-lidded eyes. " _You_ feel so good, Felina…" He slowly withdrew halfway… "So hot inside. So _tight_ …" and pushed in again just as slowly, "…for me." His bulky flesh tensely parted my inner walls a little at a time until he was fully buried again.

"Ooh!" I cried. My back arched higher. "Harder..."

"I know what I'm doing." He lifted my ass up and kept taking slow, torturous strokes now aimed at just the right spot, gradually building my delicious rhapsody.

I felt a poignant surge from the change in angle, and at this rhythm, I could measure how many strokes I was away from my meltdown. My moans rose as I inadvertently counted down in my head. 3…2…1…

"Oh, fuck, John!" My sides clenched all around him, and the rest of me was a useless mess. I could tell by his gravelly moans that he could feel what he did to me, aroused by the pressure I was putting on him.

My chest heaved in a heavy pant as he continued riding me through my high, getting a hair faster with every plunge. Visibly, he was as turned on as I was, his own breathing complicated and his dark eyes starry with desire. His scarred chest glistened with a thin veneer of the sweat he had worked up from not fucking me senseless. I don't know how he was holding back the way he was. A lesser man would have let go already.

He had me so worked up at this point, the mere suggestion of another orgasm could send me over. My brain was too defective to countdown as the next one wracked me. I called his name out, following it with a bunch of incoherent nonsense. My hips naturally rocked themselves up into him, trying to get as much of him as I could while my hidden muscles were still pulsing.

He hummed again, unraveling and losing his perfect control. Once my ruthless throbbing subsided, his fingers dug deeper into my thighs, and he markedly quickened the pace. He worked himself into a chaotic froth, faster and harder, pounding me into the bed, his balls flat out slapping my ass, and our weight slamming the bed's back into the wall. I cried out at every impact, bouncing on the mattress as I started rapidly slipping into peak number five.

"Felina!" His concentration gone, he cried out as loudly as I had been, pausing at full sheath and holding me there to release. I felt him swell inside me as he came hard, pressing strongly at my walls in every direction enough to bring me to climax that final time, and I wailed in unison with him, our orgasms in harmony.

Still inside and panting, he stood before me, a sweaty weary wreck. He coaxed himself out and collapsed beside me face down on the mattress. He clumsily reached for the key still around my neck and released me from the cuffs. The key was still in the hole when he let go of them, sitting up with his legs over the side of the mattress to catch his breath. The cuffs dangled precariously from the lanyard when I sat up.

After shaking the tightness out of my wrists, I crawled up behind him on my knees and leaned forward onto his back, enveloping him in my arms. I gave him a couple kisses on the neck and whispered into his ear, "That was incredible, mi amor."

"I do…what I can," he replied between panting breaths.

I slid my arms around him until my palms were in front of me on his back. He sighed as I rubbed at his muscles. Sliding my hands up, I started rubbing his shoulders, and I could feel him relaxing under my fingers. _He deserves a real massage, but that will have to wait until later._ Once I was sure his guard was down, I carefully ran my palms down his arms. With my hands at his wrists, I moved quickly, cuffing them together before he could catch on.

"What are you doing?" he asked with a hint of panic.

I slid onto the floor in front of him and gently cupped his balls. "Returning the favor," I said sweetly, looking up into his eyes as I caressed him.

At this, he began to swell again. He let out a breathy moan when I brought my mouth down to meet my hands. We had a lot of catching up to do. It was going to be a busy night.

* * *

Late in the night, I was plenty worn out, but every time I would pass out, I would wake back up to Hancock's loving touches against my sleeping body. In the darkest hours before dawn, I was awake again. Hancock was sitting against the bedframe and I was lying with my back against his chest, caressing and admiring his rough fingers intertwined in mine in front of me.

"Sorry for not letting you get any rest, love," he said in that melodic gravel.

"No need to apologize. I'm not complaining."

"Not yet, but you'll regret it later." He let his hand drop to my stomach and began running his fingertips over it lightly. "I was thinking…"

I could tell I wasn't going to like whatever was meant to follow those words.

"…Maybe you should stay here while Shaun and I go get Dogmeat."

There it was. I felt my face wrinkling in distress. "Why would you want to leave me here alone?"

"Don't say it like that! I don't _want_ to leave you here alone, but you need some time to recover from the rad sickness. You've done this before. You know that. And the traveling is getting harder on you. Shaun and I can get there and back pretty quickly while you rest up."

"But I'll be so worried the whole time you're gone," I whined.

"Don't be," he said, nuzzling his face into my hair. "We'll be back before you know it, and it will save us some precious time." He started rubbing my stomach. "The due date is getting closer…"

I hated that he wanted us to spend the next few weeks apart like that, especially now that we no longer had to adhere to the strict radiation rules of pregnant sex, but I recognized that what he was saying made sense. "I suppose you're right, querido."

We both felt it when Rosalita began to kick. He momentarily drew his hand back in surprise. "That is so unreal," he said quietly, feeling around for more movement. "How often does she do that?"

"Often. I hardly notice anymore unless she gets really worked up."

He guided my back down to mattress and drew his face closer to my midriff. He placed a sweet kiss there and whispered, "Rosalita."

I smiled down at him, but he was so preoccupied by the baby, I don't think he noticed.

She kicked again, and he looked up at my eyes with awe for a brief moment. "Daddy loves you," he said, still speaking into my belly button. "And you got nothing to worry about. I ain't going nowhere for long. I'll always be here for you..." He crawled back to my face and pressed his lips to mine softly before lying down beside me. "…And you, too, mommy." He laced his fingers back into mine, finally going to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, once my boys were packed up and ready, I was holding onto Hancock tightly, reluctant to let him go.

He brushed the hair out of my eyes and angled my face up to his. "Everything will be alright, love. Ambrosia is going to keep you company, and we'll hurry as quick as we can."

"I'm going to miss you," I whimpered, holding back tears.

"I'll miss you, too, but we'll be back in no time. You'll see." He kissed me tenderly and slowly pulled himself from my embrace.

I gave Shaun a hug. "Stay out of trouble."

"I'll have dad with me."

"I know. That's what I'm worried about. Don't do anything I wouldn't let you do."

"Yeah, yeah."

I watched after them wistfully as they headed off into the sun. Once they were no longer visible, I went back to my room to catch up on all the sleep I missed out on the night before.


	33. Settle Down

The days in Bomb City without my family were long and boring, but ultimately, I was glad I didn't have to hoof it across the prairie for a month. In fact, it would have been longer had my bloated, waddling-ass gone with them. Most days, Ambrosia would hang out with me. Depending on my mood, our activities would range from going out to eat to sitting in the prairie, sniping mutated geckos. Being pregnant and on vacation was no excuse to let my shooting get lazy.

One day, while we were having lunch at a diner, she tried to coax me into going shopping. "Yeah, that's not really my thing," I told her.

"Maybe not, but do you have anything at all for that baby?" she retorted.

"What?"

"Like clothes and diapers… What is she going to sleep in when she's born?"

"You mean like pajamas?"

"No, I mean like a crib."

I considered her argument for a moment. "Yeah, I guess it couldn't hurt to get her some clothes and stuff, but I can't get her a crib right now. It's not like I can drag that across the desert to Vegas."

Her face flashed sadness for a moment so fast, I almost didn't catch it. "I kinda forgot ya'll aren't staying here."

So she took me around to the various merchants in the town. The first couple people didn't have anything we were looking for. The third place we walked in had a beat-up, green prewar carriage on the show floor. "This!" She ran to it and grabbed the handle, pushing it back and forth a little. "You need this!"

"I wouldn't say I 'need' it. Remember? Long trip. Across the desert. I would have to push it the whole way."

"Yeah, and in the meantime, you could keep a bunch of your stuff in it so you can just roll it instead of carrying it."

"Hmm." I looked up in thought.

The shopkeeper came over to us. "You ladies looking for baby stuff?" he asked. "Had a woman pawn a bunch of it off here a couple months back, but there ain't too many people 'round these parts havin' babies nowdays."

_Gee, I wonder if the giant, leaking nuclear bomb facility has anything to do with that._

He showed us everything he had on hand, trying to get me to take it all. I explained my situation, and he reluctantly quit trying to push the big stuff on me, but he did give me a huge discount to buy all the stuff I said I could use. "It's just takin' up room in my inventory."

I still refused the stroller, but Ambrosia wasn't having it. She bought it for me with her own caps and used it to cart all the stuff I had just bought back to my hotel room. Once we had returned, she and I sat around and sifted through our spoils.

"Too bad that woman had a boy instead of a girl," she told me as we sorted and folded the tiny clothes. "All this stuff is blue."

I smiled. "No, that's perfect. Blue is my favorite color."

She looked up from her folding. "You sure aren't like any of the moms-to-be I ever encountered." The sadness flashed across her face again as she went back to task. "You should look up a woman named Dina when you get to New Vegas."

"Who's that?"

"The midwife I apprenticed with when I lived there. Tell her I sent you."

"I will." The next few minutes between us were just uncomfortable silence. "I can tell this baby stuff really excites you, so why did you leave your apprenticeship in New Vegas in the first place?"

"Lots of reasons, but the main one was when I was told by a missionary at a very pivotal point in my life that Atom had given me a gift."

I frowned. "Do you really think it's a gift specifically from Atom?"

"Best explanation I've ever heard."

It was apparent to me this was something she wasn't going to be easily swayed from, but there was something in her sadness that was still bothering me. "Have you ever thought about going back to Vegas?"

"Not really." After a pause, she added, "Until recently."

"Why is that?"

"Because, the Apostle isn't very happy with me right now and, well,… you're the best friend I've ever had." She quickly looked back down at the baby stuff in her lap, blushing slightly.

"Come to Vegas with us, Ambrosia."

I think she was waiting for me to ask. "You really wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not. You can help deliver Rosalita."

She smiled. "I'd be honored to deliver Atom's prophet."

I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling, too.

* * *

Ambrosia and I were sitting outside of the hotel on a pleasant afternoon in mid-February when I caught sight of my boys walking down the main street toward us with Dogmeat. I jumped to my feet and took off toward them as fast as I could. "¡Mi amor!"

Hancock stretched his arms out to me as I dove into them. He lifted me up and spun us in our embrace as we kissed. "There's my sunshine," he said into my hair, when he sat me down. He took a step back and examined my tummy. "You look like you're ready to burst!"

"Yeah, ha ha," I replied sarcastically. I moved on to greet Shaun. "Mi hijo," I said, giving him a peck on the forehead.

I gave Dogmeat a pat. "Good to see you again, boy."

He barked happily at me.

Hancock put an arm around my waist, and we started walking back to town. "Come on, let's go catch up over dinner."

* * *

We headed out the next morning, and Ambrosia did indeed come with us. We were happy to have her. As I learned when we were sniping geckos, she handled a gun pretty well, although we needed to get her something a little better than the varmint rifle and Gamma gun she packed.

She even insisted on pushing the stroller she bought, and she had a good chunk of my belongings in it. Between her and the boys, I didn't have to carry anything anymore. I kept getting bigger, clumsier, and slower, but everyone was looking out for me, so it really wasn't a problem.

It was the first of March when we passed through Albuquerque. The weather was getting warmer. I couldn't help but notice it was a comfortable seventy degrees during the day without that sticky humidity we were experiencing in the delta. Back in the Commonwealth, it would still be freezing. We started seeing more radscorpions and other desert region creatures. I was already feeling at home.

A couple weeks later, we crossed over into the Mojave Desert as evident by the presence of Joshua trees. All the sun I was soaking up was making me constantly smile. Sleep was getting harder to come by with how uncomfortable I was in my own skin, but it didn't seem to matter. Every morning, I would wake up even more excited than the previous one.

It was the last week of March when we were only about another day away from Boulder City. There it was again – the muscles spasms in my lower back. I decided not to say anything about it to the others since I knew it was way too early for Rosalita to come. We still had another month. Besides, the baby had only just begun to drop. That happened weeks before Shaun was born. I figured it must be those fake contractions my prewar doctor had told me about back during my first pregnancy. I didn't feel them with Shaun, but just knowing that was a thing that could happen made me feel better about it. It wasn't like they hurt, anyway.

Everyone was already walking at a slower than normal pace because of me. It wasn't quite sunset when I decided I couldn't go on any further. As soon as I saw a cluster of partially collapsed adobe buildings up ahead of us, I informed the others I intended for us to hold up in one for the night if they were uninhabited. Ambrosia stayed with me as I continued at my casual gait while Hancock ran up ahead to scope out the buildings with Shaun and Dogmeat. By the time we caught up to them, Hancock had already selected the building in the best shape with the most amenities still intact.

I took a quick tour of the house. Everyone could have their own room, and the plumbing was in good shape. "Good pick, querido," I remarked as I went straight for the room with the biggest bed, immediately lying down.

He followed behind me, removing my boots for me. "Can I get you anything, love?"

"Dinner. Dinner, and then I'm going to bed."

"Fair enough." He gave me a quick peck. "You just stay there and get comfortable. I'll bring the food to you."

I smiled. "You're the best."

After I ate, Hancock came to bed with me. Long after the sun had gone down, I could not get comfortable. I kept shifting positions, but no matter how I laid, my back was aching. I knew it had to be irritating Hancock because every time I stopped moving, he would put his arm over me only for me to move again, and he'd have to lift it.

"Are you alright, love?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just can't find that perfect position." I flipped onto my back again and started wiggling into the blankets. Once I had settled like that, he put his arm over me once more. I was finally pretty comfortable when a cramp flashed at me again. It didn't feel any worse than being on my period, but it caught me off guard enough that I audibly groaned.

"Are you sure you're fine?" he asked again, sounding even more concerned.

I sighed. "Yes, querido, I'm fine. It's just…"

I felt his muscles tense in anticipation of my response. "What? What is it?" His growing anxiety was very apparent.

"I have to pee."

He relaxed and removed his arm again so I could get up. "Need me to come with you?"

I smirked as I pulled my dress on over my head. "No."

I took care of things, and when I turned around, Hancock was standing there in the doorway in only his underwear and his unbuttoned shirt.

"Geez! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I was just concerned, is all." After a thoughtful look at my massive belly, he came over to me and wrapped me in his arms. "I can't get over how beautiful you are like this."

"What, fat?" I remarked, only half joking.

"You ain't fat, love. You're like some curvy, voluptuous fertility goddess, nurturing a life inside you that was brought into existence simply from our love. It's so very surreal and amazing."

 _How does he know just what to say like that?_ I couldn't say anything as poetic back, so I only smiled warmly.

He began to pet my hair. "You ain't in any hurry to go back to tossing and turning yet, are ya?"

I looked up into his ebony eyes. "No. I'm not really in any hurry to do anything but sleep, but that's starting to look grim."

"Well, before you get back to it…" he leaned in and kissed me.

He brought his hands behind my neck, cradling my face and leaning over me as his tongue slipped past my lips. I pushed into it deeper, and his hands wandered down my back, rubbing me all over. My heart fluttered a little in response to the friction he was creating, and I could tell I was getting invested. That warm feeling of arousal washed over me, and I could feel myself getting wet.

Really wet…

Distracted by this, I froze.

My hesitation didn't go ignored. "What's the matter, love?" He took a step back when he noticed the puddle I was standing in, still somewhat drizzling from between my legs. "Damn," he said, looking down between us. "I'd like to make some kind of joke about how I got ya gushin', but did you just…?"

"My water broke," I said with restrained exasperation.

His face went stern. "That's what I thought." He flipped straight into business mode, trying to carry me back to the room.

I waved him off. "I'd rather walk."

"Alright, then." He put an arm around me and guided me there. "So…are we having a baby right now?"

"Yes."

"Ok…Now what?" He was remaining cool, but I had been around him long enough to tell he was freaking out internally.

"Go get Ambrosia."

"I'm on it." He darted out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, another contraction came on. This one actually hurt. "Fuck!" I doubled over, leaning on the bedframe. I lowered myself onto the mattress, but that didn't really help. It felt like I was being twisted and squeezed by someone trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of me. "Fuck!" _Ah, my favorite word. Time to wear you out…_

Rosalita was definitely coming, and there was no denying it. She had no concern with this full-term pregnancy nonsense or calendars. She wanted out. I didn't experience this with Shaun. I spent my scheduled day of labor with him in a cold, clinical environment – face up on a gurney, doped up out of my mind, completely numb from the waist down. It looked like this was going to be the exact opposite.

Hancock returned with Ambrosia and ran to my side. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah…"

Ambrosia came to my other side.

"Should I lay down?" I asked her.

She put her arm under mine and nodded to Hancock who took my other arm. "Nope. This is going to be easier on you if you walk."

They pretty much just guided me while I paced the room, being there for me to brace on when a wave of twisting came on. I saw Shaun sitting on the floor in the hall just outside the door with Dogmeat's head in his lap. The pooch let out a concerned whimper and cocked his head as I passed them for the tenth, twentieth, eight-hundredth time. I dunno. I lost count.

The contractions were getting closer together. _You can do this, Felina. Women have been giving birth since the dawn of time, and most of that time has been without pain killers._ I tried to fight the pain, but it just made it worse. As soon as I gave myself up to it, it became easier.

"You're doing fine, love." Hancock gently stroked my back, which was really helping with the spasms. He was keeping it together pretty well on the outside, but I could see him screaming with his eyes every time I tensed up for the next twisting cramp. "Do you need anything?"

I was hot. I was sweaty. I was in labor in the goddamn desert, but the nights were never _this_ warm… "Just water."

Shaun jumped up. "I'll get it, mom."

Hancock's eyes followed Shaun out the door. Once he was gone, he turned back to me. "I meant med-x, love. Do you want a hit for this?"

"No!" I cried. "I can do this…" I winced again. It had only been a couple minutes since the last one. "Oh, fuck," I breathed out in a whisper.

"What?!" Hancock's calm exterior broke down for a moment. "What's wrong?"

Ambrosia answered him while I bore down in pain. "It's about time for her to start pushing." Shaun returned with a bottle, but she waved him back. "She won't need that right now. Go fill the tub up with warm water."

This contraction peaked higher than any of the previous, and was lasting longer, too. I grunted as I reached for the foot of the bed, bending over it. Hancock kept rubbing my back. I think that was the only thing keeping me grounded at that point. Once the monster of all contractions had passed, I glanced at Ambrosia through the sweaty strands of hair hanging in my face. "Should I lay on the bed, now?"

"No, trust me, that's going to drag this all out." She started leading me back to the bathroom where Shaun had filled the tub.

I got in, dress and all. Ambrosia didn't seem at all surprised, and Hancock just kind of shrugged it off. Shaun scurried back to the threshold to stay out of the way, but his curiosity wouldn't allow him to completely leave.

I breathed a sigh of relief at the feeling of the bath, not quite laying all the way back. I felt like I was the one in the womb. I looked up at Hancock who was smiling at me nervously.

"Do you hate me for doing this to you yet?" he asked light-heartedly.

I returned his smile as best as possible. "I could never." I reached out for his hand. Just as he grasped mine, I felt the sensation again and involuntarily squeezed him like a vice in time with an automatic moan slipping out of me.

Ambrosia, the most collected of us all, spoke to me gently, "Go ahead and push, Felina."

I bore down one good time, completely blind to what was happening downstairs. I was jarred out of the moment by Hancock's quiet exclamation of, "Oh, shit," under his breath as he stared intently between my legs.

Ambrosia put a hand on his shoulder, and he buttoned up. "One more time, Felina."

I pushed again, this time feeling a sharp, burning sting.

"There you go!" she said with cheerful encouragement. "You got a head. You're almost done."

I'll tell you one thing, pushing is easier when you're not numb and can actually feel what you're supposed to be doing. A few more good ones with hardly any screamed profanities, and I was done, panting and exhausted. I still hadn't laid eyes on Rosalita when Ambrosia took her in a towel, rubbing her all over until we all heard that first cry like a little baby goat. She cut the cord and passed her on to Hancock who looked like he could burst into tears despite the smile on his face.

I took a big breathe and slumped against the back of the tub. "Oh, my God…" The whole experience was easier than I thought it was going to be without the aid of medical doctors or drugs. Other than being tired, I already was starting to feel like my old self.

"Congratulations," Ambrosia said as she wiped her hands on a towel. "If you got it from here, I'll leave ya'll to it."

"Thank you, Ambrosia."

"Don't mention it," she remarked on her way out the door.

Hancock blinked hard a few times as his eyes diverted to me. "Do you want to see her?"

I smiled, pushing the wet hair behind my ear. "Of course."

He brought her closer to me, and I could feel my heart melting. She had my pouty lips, but her skin was smooth and a lighter shade than mine. The fine, wispy hair that frosted the top of her head was so blonde, it was almost invisible. She clearly took after Hancock's pre-ghoul appearance. Her eyes were shut tight, and her roly-poly limbs wiggled. She made the faintest whimpering sounds as her crying subsided into the cooing of a dove. The tiny little thing… "John," I muttered, completely breathless.

His smile widened. "I know. She's gorgeous."

I looked over to Shaun, but his back was to us, walking away from the door with Dogmeat at his heels. "Go put some clothes on her, and let Shaun hold her," I told him as I started to brace my hands on the side of the tub. "I'm going to get cleaned up."

While I was showering, Hancock brought my button-up shirt and suit pants to the bathroom for me. I threw them on. They were a little tighter than I prefer to wear my clothes, but I always dressed too baggy anyway. No big deal. _Enough of this bullshit. I want to see my baby…_

I came back to the bedroom to find my son holding my infant daughter while my husband watched from beside him. The dog's happily-wagging tail only added to the beauty of the moment.

Shaun let out a big yawn as he handed Rosalita off to me. "I'm going to go to bed, now, mom."

"Go ahead, hijo. I know you must be tired."

He smiled. "Probably not as much as you." He gave his sister a peck on the forehead

"Goodnight, Shaun."

"Goodnight." He yawned again as he dragged himself back to his bedroom with Dogmeat in tow.

I sat on the mattress next to Hancock and just stared down at the new, little human in my arms, beaming.

Hancock put an arm around me, pulling us into a close huddle. "Ya did good back there."

I grinned wider. "Thanks."

"I love you, Felina."

"I love you, John."

"And I love you, Rosalita." He reached for our daughter, smoothing down the wild hairs on top of her head. She purred like a kitten at the affection. He just smiled. "Now, I have two little desert roses."

* * *

The next morning, when I was feeding Rosalita, Hancock would not quit staring at me all dreamy-like.

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing." He kept staring.

"Sorry, querido," I said playfully. "These aren't your breasts anymore."

"No, it ain't that. I just think you're amazing. What you are capable of and what you're doing… It's amazing. And I never thought someone would go through all that…with me."

I got a little misty-eyed. The hormones didn't magically even out at Rosalita's exit. "There's no one else I would rather go through it for." Rosalita started to fall asleep, and after waiting a moment to be sure, I started to stand up from the bed to lay her in the stroller, but I suddenly felt sore.

It had to have been apparent in my face, because Hancock rushed to my side and took her from me. "I got her, love." After gently laying her down, he came over to me. "You alright?"

I must have been high on adrenaline the night before, because I didn't notice any discomfort then. But I just pushed a whole human out of me. What did I expect? "I'm fine," I said as I buttoned my shirt. "Walk outside with me."

We stepped out into the crisp, beautiful morning, and Hancock lit a cigarette. "You know, considering what you just did, there ain't no harm in you taking a little med-x if you want."

"Nah, I don't need to tempt that old habit. However…" I snatched the cigarette from him and took a long, slow drag. "Oh, fuck me, that's good."

He just smiled as he lit a new one for himself. "You're a class act," he said facetiously.

"Joke all you want, you know you love me."

"That I do." He put his arm around my waist and we stared out into the magnificent, golden desert dotted with cacti and small palm trees. "This place is just like you promised."

"It's very different from the Commonwealth, huh?"

"Very. This close enough to Vegas for ya? Ya know, we could just stay here for a while."

"No way," I said, taking another heavenly drag from my cigarette. "We're much too close to stop, now."

"I don't mean forever. Just for a little while. I mean, you just had a baby, Felina."

"Exactly. I no longer have any physical limitations."

He motioned toward me. "You mean other than whatever pain hit you earlier."

"Please, that's nothing. It's no worse than you pounding me silly."

"Heh, alright," he relented as he thumped his butt into the dust and rocks. "For the record, I'm willing to stay as long or as short as you want. Just say the word when you're ready to go."

"Today. I want to go today. We can make it to the Nevada border before sundown."

"As you wish, love."

It was dusk when we came up on the sun setting over the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. The massive, arched, man-made structure of concrete marked the end of Arizona and, in my mind, a definitive milestone of our journey's end. "There it is," I said with wonder, slowing to a stop when the whole thing was within picturesque view. "The Hoover Dam. Nevada is just on the other side." It's not like I had never seen it. I just thought I'd never see it again.

"That thing is pretty incredible," Shaun remarked with fascination as Ambrosia wheeled the stroller to a stop beside him and Dogmeat.

I turned the radio on my pip-boy on and scrolled the tuner until I found music:

 

" _I've wrangled, and I've rambled, and I've rodeoed around_

_I've never once thought of settling down_

_But darlin', the moment I laid eyes on you_

_I knew my ramblin' days were through_ "

 

Pleased with the old, familiar tune, I picked Rosalita up out of the stroller and held her in one arm.

Hancock took my other hand. "You ready, love?"

"Born ready."

With that, we moved to the threshold of our destination. It reminded me of the first steps we took over the bridge back in Sanctuary all those months back, only grander. Now, we were actually there.

 

" _Let's ride into the sunset together_

_Stirrup to stirrup, side by side_

_When the day is through, I'll be here with you_

_Into the sunset we will ride_ "

 

New Vegas, here we come.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone that keeps reading and commenting. I know my stories aren't the best and may not even be your favorite series, but I appreciate all of you that keep coming around. It always brightens my day :)
> 
> ________________________________________
> 
> Here's a playlist of some of the Fallout-appropriate songs I've been referencing that aren't already on any of the game's radio stations, if anyone is interested. (Some of these are just too good not to share.)
> 
> (Wicked River may technically be a modern song, but I still feel like it's fitting. Even if it isn't, it was too big of an influence on chapters 18-24 for me to leave it out.)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSiLqtoxv6RVRx4kB1KDUe1jTfNKZsY7t


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